


Raindrops on window glass

by Caritas_Lavellan



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Crime, F/M, Lavellan is a mess, Mystery, Romance, Single Parent!Lavellan, Solas is good with his hands, Surveillance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-20
Updated: 2018-04-17
Packaged: 2018-09-01 03:16:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 30
Words: 63,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8605141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caritas_Lavellan/pseuds/Caritas_Lavellan
Summary: Hot chocolate on a cold and wet November day, served with a side order of intrigue. One of those other worlds that Solas mentioned.





	1. Heavy rain

Ellen was soaking wet. And late. Late and wet, and weighed down by bags and a lack of umbrella.

It wasn’t the brolly’s fault. Most likely it was sitting in her hallway, smugly dry, listening to the rain and sighing: _if you’d only remembered me, we could have had fun together._ It wasn’t even her daughter’s fault. Last minute decision: which looks better with this coat, the black bag or the red bag, Ana?

No, definitely her own fault. She’d seen the brolly in the hall, too big for the handbag, and looked out at the morning sunshine, thinking: 24% chance, I’ll risk it. _Right, let’s go. Come on Ana, shoes? Let’s get your coat on._

She checked her watch as she passed the lit department store, its windows decorated early for Christmas. 17:53. Damn. Her appointment had been for quarter to. Surely they wouldn’t mind a few minutes late?

It was just across the road: the neon yellow sign SNiPS with its face in the round dot of the i, smiling in the urban dark. She stood, impatient to cross: feet freezing in unaccustomed heels, yesterday’s hasty purchase; cold hands gripping plastic handles with today’s. Dinner for the next two days, milk, gloves for Ana, and those ridiculously expensive teal and red shift dresses they’d given an advance for. If she could get to payday she’d be fine.

The traffic was a nightmare, and twice she had to leap back from the spray as cars raced through the puddles.

No chance to cross. Cold water was streaming down her back now, underneath her favourite green trench coat. She huddled further over the bags in her hands, hoping they’d stay waterproof.

Through the rain she saw a woman walking out of SNiPS, locking up: getting just as wet as she was, in a short yellow mac and orange miniskirt. She called and waved, but her voice was drowned by police sirens, and she had to leap back for a third time, keep the dresses dry. No difference now to her: her hair and legs were drenched already.

The lights had all gone off, even the neon sign, so probably she’d missed her chance. She swore, and began walking along the same side of the road, past a closed optician and a charity shop and a Chinese takeaway.

She’d phoned her childminder earlier, when they’d told her that she’d have to book a haircut before they’d let her on the air tomorrow morning. Thank goodness for Lanaya. She’d agreed to give Ana dinner, wouldn’t even let her offer extra money, said she would be in until eight, if Ellen got delayed.

She checked her watch again: 17:59. Dark now, and…

The lorry drenched her, head to heels, with freezing spray. _Damn, I was wrong. I could have been wetter._ Cursing, she stumbled backwards, and collided with a older man she hadn’t noticed coming up behind her.

“Sorry,” she said, and was about to move on, when she realised he was holding an umbrella and her arm.

Holding an umbrella over her. He was tall, wore a trilby and a long wool overcoat, and did not let go of her arm.

“Is something the matter?” he said, in a voice like caramel honey. _Damn again. I’m hungry._

“No, no,” she stuttered. “I’m just… very wet. That lorry. Horrible weather, isn’t it?”

“I heard you calling across the road to that shop over there. I wondered if you had had an appointment,” he continued, as if talking about the weather was irrelevant.

“Why would you care?” she snapped. He still hadn’t let go of her arm. _It’s been a long day._

“I am a hair stylist,” he explained, holding his umbrella in a firm grip, bent against the wind. Rain lashed it. “I am setting up my own place nearby. It is not officially open until tomorrow, but if I might be of assistance now…”

She looked up at him as if he were a god, and rapidly backpedalled. “I spent my lunchbreak trying to find a hairdresser who could give me an appointment after work. Too close to Christmas, I suppose. SNiPS was the only place that had a free slot.”

He chuckled. “Judging by the work I’ve seen them do, I am not surprised it had a vacancy. May I offer you an appointment somewhere better? It is only two minutes’ walk from here. _A Cut Above, 11 Church Street._ ”

She nodded, returning his sudden smile, but held on to her bags. Church Street was well lit, and familiar – tucked away among the maze of smaller streets in this area. She and Robert came here to…

_That was six years ago. How time flies._

****

Ellen stared at the raindrops on the window glass, cosily ensconced in a dark brown leather chair with her hands clasped around a mug of hot chocolate, her phone back in her handbag at her feet. The man – her good angel, tonight – had insisted on getting her a drink, before he’d even taken off his own coat and hat, saying he’d be with her in a few minutes. Her coat was hung up neatly on a rack behind a velvet curtain, somewhere in a darkened corner with her bags. The whole aesthetic was modern retro, brown and white and muted greens.

One raindrop chased another, and she wondered whether Ana would be eating dinner now. She’d texted Lanaya to say where she was. It was strange being in this salon on her own, but sheer relief as well: a chance to rest before she picked Ana up and did the bedtime things. She’d eat after that, then…

She took a sip of the drink, feeling cinnamon-scented warmth spread through her body. After could wait: this was delicious.

Her eyes had closed, listening to the patter of the rain. She’d kicked her heels off, wriggling her toes, the better for her damp tights to dry out. This place was warm, and safe, and…

“Has it been a long day?” came his voice, and she was comforted by how kind it sounded. Opening her eyes, she was surprised again to see that he was bald, and wore a clean paisley-patterned shirt with sleeves rolled up. In her past life, hairdressers were female, dressed in black, with glossy hair styled so that it stayed out of the way.

She had been staring too long, but he simply continued, business-like: “What is it you wanted done?”

“I need my hair to look perfect for tomorrow,” she explained. “Something I can style easily. I’m on TV.”

His eyes widened, and she turned to look at the mirror in front of her. In the strong lighting the problem was obvious: her hair was frizzy, uncombed; her hastily applied mascara smudged by rain. She was a mess.

“When was the last time you visited a hairdresser’s?” he asked, inspecting a length of long brown hair between his fingers. His hands were warm as they brushed against her neck. But then, _he’d_ been wearing gloves outside.

Ellen had to think. “About four years ago? I’ve been cutting it myself.”

He nodded, still contemplating her image in the mirror, trailing a finger along her cheekbone as he measured out lengths. “I think this may take a little time to fix. It’s ten minutes past six. How long do you have?”

“Until seven-fifteen, I guess? Is that enough time?”

He stepped back, pulling a dark brown gown from a peg. “Yes, I can manage that. Put this on.”

She stood up, forgetting about her heels. The man was really very tall. Without her heels she barely reached his shoulder. Then a horrible thought struck her. “Oh! I never asked you how much this would cost.”

“It’s free,” he said, helping her get her arms into the gown, and guiding her to sit down with her head back against the lip of a sink. “As I said, we’re not officially open yet. If you like your new style, you can tell your friends about us. And if not, then it hasn’t cost you anything. Is that water a good temperature?”

“Us? It’s not just you, then? Oh, and thank you! That would be very helpful,” she said, incoherently. “I’m Ellen. And yes, that’s lovely, nice and warm. It was so cold outside. I don’t really like shopping.”

He chuckled. “Yes, we should do introductions, shouldn’t we? My name is Solas. My assistant’s name is Cole.”

His hands were easing her hair into the sink, long fingers running over her head, settling her in. Ana’s idea of hairdressing was to yank the brush through her hair regardless of knots and tangles. This was… different. Gentle.

“Are you happy for me to use herbal shampoo and conditioner?” he asked. “They are special remedies of mine.”

“Sure,” she said, and was soon breathing in a beautiful fragrance, mint and lavender and other scents she couldn’t put a name to. She suspected it was unusual that he made the stuff himself. Although it was probably a factory somewhere, not that he mixed up the herbs in his retro bath with a big 1960s stick.

She found herself giggling at the thought, and his hands stilled. “Are you ticklish?” he asked, sounding amused.

“No, I was just wondering if you made the shampoo yourself in a big bath somewhere.” It sounded even sillier now she’d said it out loud, and she blushed hard. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend. It’s been a long day.”

He ignored her comment, simply saying: “You have beautiful hair, Ellen. This will help take care of it.”

It would be better to keep her mouth shut, she decided. After all, she was getting this haircut for free.

“Thank you,” she said, taking a deep breath to inhale the minty smell. “It does smell lovely.”

“You are welcome,” he replied, and then they both fell silent. The tips of his fingers caressed her head in small circles, rubbing the shampoo into her scalp. It was… incredibly pleasurable, ridiculously so.

Warm water cascaded over the back of her head, a soft and calming flow, and then she felt his hands smoothing another layer of cold, scented liquid all the way from the roots of her hair to its tips. It felt divine, to be looked after. She couldn’t remember the last time anyone had, not since Robert…

Well, that was gone, and all he’d left her with was memories and debts. And Ana, of course.

Solas’ hands glided carefully around her ears, his thumbs massaging the hair at the back of her neck and slowly moving upwards, then back downwards. She was suddenly conscious that they were quite alone, and that her body was reacting to his touch as if it had been starved of sensual contact for far too long.

_Which, of course, it has._

From what she could remember, he was actually rather handsome, if you didn’t mind the lack of hair and retro styling. Silently, she gave in, and let herself enjoy the feeling in her lower back and thighs, the perineal muscles coaxed into instinctive response. It would be too brief, and she would have to go out in the rain again, and…

Solas was still massaging her scalp, as if they had all the time in the world. She found the tension dropping away, lost in an absent world of cyclones, floods and freezing fog. This was warm and safe, and…

His fingers drifted away, and she was conscious of a pang of loss.

Then he was wrapping her hair in a gloriously soft towel, moss-green like the plants and the painted ceiling, and guiding her back to her chair, with its soft leather and hot chocolate. A little piece of heaven, she thought, with my very own angel.

_And it’s free!_

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any interest in me continuing this? I have an idea for a longer plot. Or it could just be a one-shot. Mmm, hot chocolate.
> 
> Standard disclaimers about any resemblance to real-life events or people being entirely coincidental apply. This is a work of fiction.


	2. Frost

It had been the vouchers that had brought them here too early. Despite the thick black sweater under her trench coat, Ellen was shivering as they walked down the street. Most weekends now she tried to keep them out of the flat, avoid having to switch the heating on. Neighbouring flats were warm; the pipes wouldn’t actually freeze.

They’d had breakfast in the kitchen, cuddled up in duvets, Ellen cutting out the cereal coupons to add them to the... well, it had been a neat pile, until Ana had tipped the box upside-down.

“Ana, don’t play with these coupons,” she’d said. “We need to keep them safe. Put them in the box, please.”

“What are these ones, Mummy? They’re really pretty!”

Her daughter had smoothed out the vouchers, tracing the stylized flowers on them with a glittery finger.

“Those are from the man who did my hair,” she’d said, carefully snipping along the long edge of the coupon. “He saw me on the TV and sent me them at work. A thank you for telling others about his shop. That reminds me. I should cut your hair today before you go to the birthday party tomorrow. Did we get a present for Niamh?”

“Why can’t I have my hair done at a hairdressers?”

When Ellen had tried to explain that it would require money, Ana had pointed out, with all the frustratingly accurate logic of a four-year-old, that they had vouchers and so therefore, it would cost vouchers, not money.

And because four-year-olds wake up early on Saturdays and most other people don’t, and because the flat was freezing and the salon would be warm, and because Ellen knew she wasn’t actually very good at cutting Ana’s hair, and because the bus came early, so they found themselves, at 08:43, on the first Saturday in December, on Church Street, staring at a CLOSED sign on _A Cut Above_ , and waiting for nine o’clock.

She didn’t even know if they – if _Solas_ – would cut children’s hair. There was a price list in the window, marking the place as too expensive for regular use, even with her new job. Maybe once Ana started school?

“Can I look in that shop, Mummy? The one with the pink bird in the window.”

Ana tugged at her hand, and Ellen let herself be dragged across the frosty road to the jewellers’. She’d sold the ring four years ago, six months after Robert had been killed, three months after they would have been married, two months before Ana was born. These days she found it best to treat it as a lucky escape. In order not to have to sell the flat, she’d be paying off his debts for another seven years, but at least she wasn’t married to a liar.

She knelt down and admired the emeralds and sapphires, the rubies and the garnets. “Aren’t they lovely, Ana?”

“My favourite is the purple one. Look! Matchy-matchy.”

Ana held out the sleeve of her coat and showed that the amethyst did indeed match perfectly.

“That emerald brooch would match my coat,” said Ellen, checking her watch. 08:46. She rubbed her hands together for warmth, and looked at the flamingo decoration. “Do you remember what the pink bird is called?”

Before Ana could answer, there was a quiet cough from behind them, and Ellen looked up back over her shoulder. After a few weeks, she was almost used to the lighter weight of her head now that her hair was much shorter – a tamed and layered bob, rather than the frizzy ponytail she used to scrape it back into.

“Hello”, said a young man with a long blond fringe. “I like the flamingo too. It wishes I could fly.”

“I can fly!” said Ana, stretching her arms out and flapping them up and down.

The blond man smiled. “Yes! Little purple wings. Flamingos aren’t purple though. I don’t know any purple birds.”

Ellen couldn’t think of any purple birds either, and stood up. The sign on the salon door read OPEN now, and she could see the lights were on. “Ana, the hairdressers is open. Do you want to fly across the road with me?”

“Let’s all fly together,” said the young man. “That’s where I work.”

“Oh, are you Solas’ assistant?” asked Ellen, as she took Ana’s hand and they crossed to the other side of the street. It was quiet, with few cars around at this time in the morning. The frost covered everything in white.

“I’m Cole,” said Cole, as they stepped through the door and into the warmth. “Yes. Do you have an appointment? That’s what Solas likes me to ask. He’s not here. I heard you knocking. You looked cold.”

Ana was still flapping her purple coat wings, spinning around. Cole must live above the hairdressers.

“No, we didn’t have an appointment,” replied Ellen, after she had got Ana to stop spinning. She fished in her handbag and extricated the vouchers from her purse. “Would you be able to cut Ana’s hair if I paid with these?”

“Yes. The first appointment is at nine-thirty,” said Cole, running his finger down the appointments book. It was brown leather, like the waiting area sofa and the salon chairs. “Solas will be here at nine. He can do it then. Would you like something to drink while you wait? A cup of tea or coffee?”

“Can I have milk please?” asked Ana, before immediately adding: “Mummy, I don’t want my coat on.”

How she could already be too hot Ellen had no idea. Presumably flapping helped. She managed not to roll her eyes at Ana. “I’d like a cup of tea. Milk, no sugar. Thanks! Yes, take your coat off. Shall we sit on the sofa?”

She retrieved the purple coat from where Ana had dropped it on the floor, and picked up a magazine from the little wooden table nearby. More highbrow than she expected from a salon – _a cut above, hah –_ they were photography magazines, and art, and literature. She picked out a _National Geographic_ with a section on animals of the African savannah, hoping to interest Ana in a flamingo if she could find one.

Maybe in seven years’ time she could afford to take Ana on a holiday. Robert had loved travelling. He had loved many things, and her, but not enough to tell the truth. Still, it was her own fault that she’d signed the papers.

She thrust the depressing thought down where it belonged – the past – and smiled at Cole as he brought tea.

“It’s nice to be looked after,” she said, still smiling, and caught a sidelong, puzzled glance from Ana as she brought the cup up to her lips. “This tea is lovely. Thank you for letting us in. And for Ana’s milk.”

After all, politeness didn’t cost anything.

****

Cole had found the smallest of the gowns for Ana, and had swathed her in a seat so she could look at the mirror, watching her pink trainers kicking their reflections. She was having the time of her life, in a big seat at a big hairdressers. Ellen sat on the sofa, hiding behind her empty cup of tea and feeling embarrassed. What if Solas thought she should have used the vouchers for herself? How would Ana cope with sitting still for this?

She tried to distract herself with thinking what they could buy for Ana’s friend Niamh, one of the other children Lanaya looked after. There were plenty of small toys that didn’t cost that much, and she still had wrapping paper and sellotape and blank cards that Ana could decorate…

The door to the salon was pushed open, with a blast of cold air ruffling Cole’s hair and making Ellen shiver again. She looked up at Solas, who was wrapped up in his overcoat and trilby and a long dark woollen scarf.

“This is Ellen,” explained Cole, to her relief. “From the TV. I said you had time for an appointment.”

“Ellen…” said Solas, turning around to smile at the sofa. “I did not expect you back so soon.”

“Oh, it’s not for me,” she said, flushing in the warm heat of his scrutiny. He was as handsome as the channel’s news presenters, but the steady calmness in his gaze and voice seemed real. “My daughter Ana’s in the chair.”

“Your… daughter?” he asked, startled, quickly scanning the chairs in the salon – the three by the mirrors and the one by the sink – before he placed her. “Ah, I see. Your… daughter.”

“Er… yes. Is that ok? I need to use the vouchers and she wanted to play hairdressers, I mean… go to the…” She could feel herself gabbling, and stopped. He’d turned away, glancing at the sunburst clock above the door.

“Hello, Ana,” he said, giving his coat and hat to Cole, who disappeared somewhere through a door. He was wearing a soft green cardigan, and rolled up his shirtsleeves with it. “Is this your first time at a hairdressers?”

His voice remained quiet and polite, but Ellen had the strangest sense of coldness, as if the frost outside had somehow infected it. She told herself it was just the slight fall in temperature from when the door had opened.

Ana nodded. “I was being a purple bird. Cole was a blackbird. I like Cole.”

“I am glad he entertained you,” said Solas, and shook his head slightly, frowning, as if he needed to focus. He turned to Ellen. “Is it just a trim? You will want her hair to stay out of her eyes.”

“Yes, thank you,” said Ellen. “I have been cutting her hair myself. It’s not easy to get her to sit still.”

“She’ll sit still in this chair,” said Solas, and smiled briefly down at Ana. “If you do, you can choose a sweetie from the jar on the table when I’m finished. I can cut her hair while it’s dry, Cole, we don’t need the sink.”

Cole seemed to slip in and out of the room without her noticing it. Surprisingly, or perhaps not, the blatant bribery worked, and Solas was able to trim Ana’s dark ringlets while she watched him with inquisitive brown eyes, curious about all of the combs and scissors but not daring to ask what each was for. Ellen decided that her little girl was enjoying it, and tried to feel like she was old enough to have a four-year-old daughter. It was hard not to feel a little… judged, by Solas’ surprise, and it wouldn’t be the first time, not by any means.

_Yes. I’m a single mother. I work all day and study all night. I’ve got no money. Get over it._

The cut was over more quickly than she had expected. He was clearly a fast worker when he wanted to be, which meant… had he lingered deliberately, three weeks ago, when he’d been with her? She remembered again the thrill of pleasure she’d felt when he’d sent the vouchers. It was only Ana’s grinning face, so happy with her new haircut for Niamh’s party, that stopped her from envying her daughter getting the haircut instead of her.

She looked up at Solas, smiling softly, her defensiveness forgotten with Ana’s pleasure, and said: “You did a wonderful job. Thank you. And thank you again for my own hair, the people at work were impressed.”

“It is the grace of your movements that impresses people, not your hairstyle,” said Solas, as she passed the vouchers over. He took just one and passed the others back. “Only one will be needed, thank you.”

“Are you saying that I’m graceful?” she found herself saying, as she wriggled Ana back into her coat.

“It was a declaration, not a matter for debate,” he said, with a wry look at her. “Your husband is a lucky man.”

“I don’t have a daddy,” said Ana, before Ellen could think how best to respond. “Daddy was killed and now Mummy and I don’t have any money. But I love Mummy. She tries really hard with scoop-ons and scissors.”

“Scoop-ons?” asked Solas, looking blank.

Ellen felt like she was going to sink through the floor with embarrassment. “Coupons, Ana, not scoop-ons.”

“Coupons,” repeated Ana. “We have lots and lots of them. Thank you, Solas. I love my hair!”

“Let’s go and get Niamh a present,” said Ellen, firmly, looking out at the leaden grey sky. She shivered as the sharp chilled air met her face, and again as Solas’ hand held the door open above her head for them to go out, long fingers that… and he thought she was graceful… well. “Thank you,” she muttered, with a sigh.

_Must go. So embarrassing. I must explain to Ana later you can’t just blurt out things like that._

“Do come back,” called Cole, but she didn’t dare turn around. They were already halfway to the jewellers, with its amethysts and sapphires, its Christmas adverts bright with diamond rings and silver necklaces.

She wanted nothing more than to kick the window in. But that would have been setting a bad example.

  



	3. Snowdrift

The snow was falling more heavily now, in line with the forecast she’d broadcast yesterday. Merrill ran on ahead, muffled up in a fluffy black coat and lime green scarf, giggling just as much as Ana or Niamh. They’d given up on waiting for a bus, deciding that the girls could manage the mile’s walk into the city just as well as waiting.

“I can hardly believe I’m doing this,” said Lanaya, her cheeks as pink as the beanie that hid her dark blond hair.

Ellen smiled. “Having second thoughts? It’s not too late. Your guests could have a snowball fight instead.”

Lanaya shook her head, adjusting the straps of her rucksack so it sat more comfortably on her back. They were over halfway there already, tramping through the newly-minted snow. “No. Though the girls would love that. Maybe we could have one anyway, after the ceremony. There’s only a few of us. We could go to Victoria Park.”

“Who else is coming?”

“Besides us? Varric’s bringing a few of Merrill’s old friends down by car. That’s it. We decided to keep it small, no family. Merrill’s family disowned her and mine have enough problems going on back home. I can send photos.”

Her phone wasn’t the latest model, but it took decent photos. “Do you want me to take some?”

“Varric said he’d take some at the registrar’s, but it would be lovely to have some when Solas does our hair.”

Her friend’s tone was suspiciously innocent. Ellen frowned. “You said the ceremony was this morning.”

“It’s at 11.30. You didn’t think we’d get married at nine, did you? We’re booked in with Solas nine to eleven.”

Ellen couldn’t help a defensive tone creeping into her voice. “I just assumed you’d booked so late you had to take whatever slot they had. You only got engaged last month!”

Lanaya smiled sweetly. “I thought you’d be pleased to see your mysterious angel once again. His salon’s just round the corner from the registrar’s. Solas said he has a room we can use. I’ve got clothes in the rucksack we can all change into. A surprise for the girls. An early birthday present, if you want to keep yours. Shoes, too.”

“Lana…”

“Don’t say I shouldn’t have, because you know I love making dresses for the girls. Floor-length medieval velvet dresses, just like Merrill’s always wanted. You’re not going to deny her on her wedding day, now, are you?”

Ellen gave up. She was going to see Solas again, in fancy dress, and had better get used to it. “What colour?”

“Dark green for Merrill, gold and green for me, gold for Niamh, plum for Ana, dark pink for you.”

“When did you have the time to make all those?” asked Ellen, shaking her head slightly. The snow was getting worse, some drifts a foot deep now. She was glad she’d made Ana put two pairs of socks on in her wellies.

“In the evenings over Christmas. I didn’t make the shoes! I got them from a store online. When we went to Merrill’s for Niamh’s party, we left our shoes in the hall, so I checked your shoe size then. Easy to check the girls’ when they come to me. Merrill has the shoes in her bag. I hope the dresses aren’t too crushed in mine.”

They were turning into Church Street already, catching up with Merrill. “Crushed velvet’s a thing, isn’t it?”

Merrill smirked, still holding Ana’s hand in one and Niamh’s in the other, glancing significantly from Ellen to the salon down the road. “From what I heard, velvet’s not the only thing that has a crush.”

“That was two months ago. It was… a very good haircut,” said Ellen, rolling her eyes. “Nice hands, nice voice…”

“Mummy, he said you were graceful,” said Ana, looking puzzled as Lanaya and Merrill dissolved into further giggles. Ellen hoped they hadn’t decided to get married just to set her up. “What does graceful mean again?”

“I told you. It means he liked the way your mummy looks and moves,” said Lanaya briskly, taking Ana’s other hand and smiling down at her. “Come on, let’s all get out of the snow and into beautiful princess dresses.”

Ellen traipsed behind them, in her old worn boots and second-hand duffel coat and woollen jumper over her best work dress, wondering if she were being cast as Cinderella.

****

Well, the shoes weren’t glass, but soft dark leather: simple ankle boots that fitted snugly on her feet. Merrill had bustled her and the girls into the side room with the bags. Lanaya was explaining to Solas what she wanted: it seemed to involve a lot of braiding. Ana had been so excited that she’d practically stripped off before they got the door closed, and was now jumping up and down with Niamh: one plum, one gold, both giddy.

They’d taken off their boots in the outer room, where Solas – or perhaps Cole – had thoughtfully placed a line of old newspapers to soak up the snowmelt. She’d put the shoes on first, before she helped the others dress. Merrill’s dress was gorgeous: a beautiful green velvet bodice that she’d helped her tie up at the back with silver ribbon, flaring out into a full-length skirt. Hers was still lying in a roll on top of the rucksack where it leant against the wall, with a pair of black opaque tights thoughtfully tucked into it by Lanaya just in case. She hoped it fit.

Merrill looked at the girls, a pleased expression on her face. “They’re doing well these days.”

She nodded, sharing the nostalgia. Niamh was Merrill’s niece, adopted by her at fifteen months when Niamh’s parents – Merrill’s brother and his wife – were killed in a car accident. Like Ellen still was, Merrill had been a research student at the university, her PhD in organic rather than atmospheric chemistry, and she now ran her own business supplying essential oils to aromatherapists. They’d first met not in the department, but while waiting for appointments in the counselling centre. That measure of shared experience – loss and unexpected single parenthood – had thrown them together. It was Ellen who had introduced her to Lanaya.

Before she could reply, to wish her friend every happiness in future, there was a soft knock.

“I apologise for interrupting,” said Solas, through the door, “but can I have the next one?”

“We’re all ready except Ellen,” said Merrill, opening the door and beaming up at him, and ushering the girls through. She closed the door behind her and Ellen found herself alone. _Well, I’m used to that._

She eased off her heavy jumper, stuffed the spare tights in the pocket of her coat, and began to unroll the dress.

****

Lanaya had done a great job with the dress: they were roughly the same height and weight, so she’d probably used herself as a model. It hung to her ankles, dark pink velvet with a black ribbon trim, a faded rather than a brilliant rose. It would complement the others beautifully. Ellen hooked the dress up at the top, then searched the rucksack to find the ribbon that would secure the bodice at the back.

There was a green ribbon, but that must be for Lana’s dress, not hers. She didn’t have any shoelaces, or even string. Maybe one of the others would have something she could use? Ellen opened the door a crack, and peered out. Lanaya had Ana and Niamh on the sofa, one snuggled up under each arm, engrossed in a book. Solas had already shaped Merrill’s short hair, and she was sitting in the chair talking animatedly on her phone while trying to apply eyeshadow in the mirror. Cole was sweeping the floor.

The only one who saw her was Solas, who turned from putting away his scissors and combs to say: “Can I help?”

“Do you have any long ribbons or anything that could tie my dress up at the back? Like Merrill’s. I can’t find the ribbon.” The words came out in a whisper. She didn’t want to embarrass Lanaya after all the work she’d done.

His eyes widened slightly, taking in the colour of her dress. He picked up a pair of scissors from the tray. “That colour suits you. I’ve got some cord which might match. It’s in a cupboard in that room. Mind if I come in?”

She nodded, and rapidly found herself being spun around to check the length of cord required, his hands pulling together the fabric at the back. “I... enjoyed our conversation when you first came here,” he said. “I had been doubting whether I was right to move to the city, but you convinced me. I would enjoy talking with you more.”

Ellen didn’t know what to say. _Sweet talker,_ she thought.

“I watch you every morning on TV,” he continued. “Your channel’s forecasts are generally more accurate than any of the others I might watch, and you make even the dullest days sound full of promise.”

“You hardly know me,” she said. “That’s just a front, to deliver the forecasts. What if I’m not really like that?”

“A good point. Merrill told me that you liked going to concerts. Classical music.”

Solas stepped away, taking a reel of satiny black cord out of the cupboard, and cutting off a length. His movements were quick and deft. Ellen sighed. “Yes. Though, as you heard last time, I can’t afford them now.”

“I am fond of music as well,” he said, twisting the cord in his hand. “Too much to play it through a phone for customers. I haven’t been able to pay for a music system yet, otherwise we’d be listening to some now.”

She hadn’t noticed the absence of music on her previous visits, but now she did. “What would you play?”

He chuckled. “I’m not sure how many clients would appreciate Shostakovich or Stravinsky. Maybe Debussy.”  

“I like Debussy.” He was threading the cord through the loops on the back of her dress, warm fingers tickling the back of her neck. She took a breath. “They run free concerts at lunchtimes on Wednesdays at the city halls. String quartets, quintets, thirty minutes. It’s only two minutes from my work so I can fit it in my lunchbreak.”

“The city halls, hmm. I could close the salon for an hour if I didn’t have any appointments.” Solas tied a bow at the back of her waist, and turned her around to face him. “All fixed. Maybe I will see you there some time.”

His eyes were warm and kind, and she looked away, suddenly flustered. “Some company would be lovely.”

“Let’s join the others, then.” He held the door open for her, and she gathered up her skirts, wondering what she was getting herself into. _Is he looking for a friend, or something more?_ Oh… she ought to take some photos.

“Mummy!” cried Ana, as she swished towards the sofa. “I love your dress! Look at mine. We’re all velvety.”

“I’d better get dressed as well,” said Lanaya, clearing a space for Ellen to sit down. “Ellen can read the next bit.”

Merrill had been talking on the phone, but now she clicked it off, and walked over to Lanaya. “Bad news, Lana. That was Isabela. Varric’s caught in a snowdrift. Not sure they’ll make it in time.” She looked sad, and Cole’s head span around to exchange a glance with Solas, mouthing – _tea?_

As he nodded, Ellen frowned. “Don’t you need two witnesses? What if they don’t get here in time?”

“We can be witnesses!” said Ana, twisting her velvet skirt up in her hands. Niamh nodded vigorously.

“You need to be a grown-up to be a witness,” said Solas. “What time is your ceremony booked for?”

Lanaya had her arm around Merrill. “It’s at 11.30. They said it would take about half-an-hour. Merrill, don’t worry. Maybe we can get a taxi home, stay in our dresses, and get everyone to come to mine for drinks.”

“If you want another witness, I don’t have another appointment until 12.15.”

Merrill murmured to Lanaya: “I don’t want to put off the wedding, not with the girls so excited. Let’s do it.”

“I would be honoured to be of assistance,” said Solas. “So long as you don’t mind my lack of suitable attire.”

“I think you look perfect," said Ellen, and then blushed as everyone stared. “Oh! I didn’t mean to say that aloud.”

“I think you look perfect too, Ellen,” said Solas, his eyes crinkling with amusement. “Shall I do your hair now?”

  



	4. Hailstorm

The concert was about to start when Solas slipped into the empty seat at the end of the row beside her, placing her handbag on the ground beside her feet. Like her, he didn’t trouble to take his coat off. It was a colonnaded barn of a place, like a secular cathedral: stone-cold, covered; excellent acoustics; uncomfortable seats.

This was the third week in a row that they had attended the lunchtime concert together. Admitting she was falling in love was easy, but was it with him, or with what she wanted him to be?

He smiled down at her, her heart skipped a beat, and the lead violinist began. _Ravel: String Quartet in F Major_ : that’s what the programme on her lap said. She closed her eyes to lose herself in the interweaving melodies.

Today was going to be different. Today was her birthday and she was going to take the afternoon off. Not out in public, where garrulous grandmothers and bored teens might recognise the new weather girl. Not in her own cold apartment. She was going to Solas’ flat to… to… eat cake, and do whatever people did when they relaxed.

It was hard to relax.

She’d rushed through the preparations for tomorrow’s forecasts this morning; she’d sent the penultimate chapter to her thesis supervisor late last night. Ana was at Lanaya’s as usual. Everything was in order.

So why was it hard to relax?

Ellen took a deep breath, looked up to watch the players, tried to focus on the cello’s deep pizzicato, and blinked back tears in her eyes, biting her lip. On another day this music might have felt serene, even peaceful, but today it jarred as misplaced nostalgia. She didn’t need time to think, she needed…

Solas brushed his hand against hers, turning her left hand over, and interlocking his fingers in hers. She gripped them, conscious of his proximity and the silent listeners all around, and felt the tears trickling down her face.

When the first movement finished, he whispered: “Ellen, we don’t have to stay. Come on, let’s go.”

She nodded mutely, letting him lead her out into the street. It had been overcast this morning, windy, with a 10% chance of a hailstorm. The wind was stronger now, gusty and blustery. Ellen felt Solas draw her arm into hers, for stability and shelter. The sky was almost greenish, with huge black clouds scudding from the west.

“I think this is the hailstorm,” she said, dragging the hood of her duffel coat up, just as the heavens opened.

Solas looked up at the sky, then down at her sheer tights and stiletto heels. “An umbrella will be of no use in this wind,” he called, angling his mouth to her ear so she could hear him over the swishing traffic and pound of heavy raindrops. “My flat’s about ten minutes’ walk from here. Hold tight. Can you run in those?”

Her feet were already soaked. “I’ll try. I should have worn boots!”

He shrugged, and squeezed her arm closer, setting off at a jog so she could keep pace. “Don’t worry about it.”

The hail hit within ten seconds, hard and white and unrelenting. It was sheer relief to get inside, breathless, to have Solas help her get her toggles undone and ease her out of her coat. _Usually, I do this for Ana._ The rain had leaked through to her jumper and the bottom of her dress was sodden, sticking to her legs. She watched him take his gloves, scarf, hat and coat off, and hang them beside her duffel. His trousers were drenched as well.

She took her shoes off, following his lead, then followed him into the living area. It was blissfully warm, with a comfortable sofa, TV and stereo at one end and a spotless kitchen-diner at the other. She was still shivering.

“Your hair’s all white. Let me get a towel and make you something to drink. What would you like?”

“Hot chocolate would be lovely, if you have it,” said Ellen, adding, with a self-deprecating smile: “My jumper and dress and tights are soaked as well. At least I did predict there might be hail today.”

Solas chuckled, using his phone to choose some music, then said, without turning round: “Would you like to borrow a shirt of mine to wear, while your clothes dry on the radiator? Or is that too fast for you?”

Piano. Debussy. _The Snow is Dancing._ She used to play that at home, in another life: a teenage life. But she was grown-up now, and could decide her own rules. “It might be a good idea. Before I get your sofa wet.”

He nodded, and beckoned to her to follow him back into the hall, indicating the door to the bathroom. “You can use the shower if you like. I’ll get you a towel and a shirt, then make us something hot to drink.”

****

Ten minutes later, Ellen walked back into the living room, dressed in a plain white shirt and a navy towel wrapped round her waist. A smaller, matching towel sat round her shoulders. Warm wet hair fell over her face and dripped on the towel. Solas had changed his own trousers, lit lamps around the room, and set the coffee table with a tray of hot chocolate, coffee, cream cakes… and a hairdryer. He stood outlined against the window.

“Happy birthday, Ellen,” he said, turning to her with a smile. “I’m afraid I didn’t make the cakes myself.”

She laughed, sitting down at one end of the sofa, her bare feet tucked up beside her. “You have a hairdryer?”

He raised an eyebrow, clearly pretending to be offended. “I haven’t always had this style of hair.”

“Oh? There must be many things that we don’t know about each other. Ages, for example. How old are you?”

“Thirty-six. My birthday’s in June. And you are…?”

“Twenty-five. So I guess I’m not that young any more. I felt very young when I had Ana.” She felt the sad mood creeping up again. They had spoken before about Ana, and how she’d found the job when her PhD funding finished in September, recommended to them by her supervisor. She hadn’t told him about the debts.

“You’re not that old,” said Solas, plugging in the hairdryer and perching on the arm of the sofa with it. He retrieved a comb from his pocket. “Your hair will get frizzy if you don’t dry it immediately. Let me.”

“You’re determined to look after me,” she said. The towel had risen up her thighs, and she tugged it down.

“It’s your birthday. And even if it weren’t, I’d want to.” He teased her hair out, drying each strand in turn. Hot air tickled her neck and blew down the collar of the borrowed shirt, making her skin tingle. His fingers stroked her cheekbones, behind her ears, lingering over the touches in a way she knew was just for her: for here; for now.

“There. That's better.” Abruptly the hairdryer was switched off, and she could hear Debussy again.

Solas sat down beside her, awkwardly pressing his hands together. She could practically see his heart racing.

Ellen forgot about the hot chocolate, the cake, her shyness, and shifted closer to him, kneeling on the sofa facing him. “Much better. Thank you. It’s lovely to be warm and dry. This is a beautiful flat.”

His voice trembled as he gripped his hands in his lap, staring at them. “It feels like a dream to have you here. As if I’d fallen asleep and imagined that you’d stepped out of my TV screen. A rare and marvellous spirit.”

She snorted, reaching up with her right hand to tilt his head to face her, her thumb stroking his cheekbone. “All hail Ellen the weather goddess. I’m not interested in being put on a pedestal. But I am interested in _you_.”

“As I am in you,” he murmured. She loved the way his voice deepened, his eyes softened.

It was the work of a moment to brush her lips against his, inhale the scent of his skin, and sit back, waiting. She’d decided their first kiss would be clumsy and awkward, and she didn’t care. It was the signalling that counted.

His eyes narrowed, flaring stormy blue, as if her deliberate levity were a challenge to his pride. “I was not planning to put you on a pedestal, dear heart.” His hands gripped her round the waist and lifted her on to his lap. She squeezed a knee on each side of his thighs, tucking the towel back into itself for decency, then found herself spun round and on to her back on the sofa, with Solas lying on his side beside her. “That better?”

She returned his grin, feeling light-headed and reckless. “Very much better. Are you going to kiss me back?”

“I was trying to decide...”

Solas brushed her hair back from her face and dusted kisses over her forehead and nose and chin, kissing at the edges of her mouth, his right hand ghosting down her body, tracing her shoulderbone, gently cupping the side of her breast, smoothing the towel down her thigh. By the time he kissed her in earnest, his hands in her hair as hers cradled his head, his body lay flush against hers, and she felt hot with desire.

It had been years since she had been held for this long by anyone but Ana, this intimate with anyone but…

“I love you, Ellen,” said Solas, drawing her into his arms. “Some cake, or something else?”

She hid her head in his shoulder, torn between the violence of her feelings and the reluctance to allow herself to trust. _That’s the past. What about the future?_

“I’m not sure,” she whispered, knowing what he meant. “It… has been a long time.”

He let her sit back, and passed her the mug of hot chocolate. “There are considerations, aren’t there?”

She nodded, taking a sip. “I like you, and I… I want you, but I feel… that I don’t really know you yet.”

“Does anyone ever truly know anyone?” he asked, standing up and retrieving a small wrapped present from the counter in the kitchen area. “I don’t know whether you will like this as a birthday present. Cole suggested it.”

Ellen blushed. “That’s very kind of you.” It was wrapped in shiny green paper, neatly tied with a bow of the same satiny cord they’d tied her dress with. She smiled as she untied it. “You know, I found the ribbon for that dress? Lanaya had rolled it up in the spare tights she’d put with it. I found it in my coat pocket when I got home.”

His lips twitched. “I did think Lanaya seemed too organised to have forgotten it entirely. Although they were very determined to set you up with me. They thought you’d been alone too long. I don’t know if you agree.”

The present turned out to be a small box from the jewellers across the road from his salon, containing the vintage emerald leaf brooch she’d pointed out to Ana. She looked up, shocked. “This is too generous of you, Solas.”

He shook his head, a sad smile on his lips. “It wasn’t that expensive. Fifty pounds at most if you re-sold it.”

“I don’t want to sell it,” she said, quickly. “Thank you. I do like it. I was just… surprised.”

He nodded, taking a gulp of coffee, and motioned at the television. “Would you like to watch something?”

Ellen looked down at the brooch, thinking hard, and came to a decision. “Life’s too short. You’re right: no-one ever truly knows another person. But I do like you. How about we do something else? Condoms are in my bag.”

It was this recklessness that had landed her pregnant at twenty, and six feet deep in debt, but she’d been forced to be cautious for too long. As Solas carried her through to his bedroom, she loosened the towel. She’d thought about this, of course. As well as buying condoms, she’d put on her best bra and knickers, and tidied herself up.

“Did you have anything specific in mind?” he asked, lowering her on to the bed and lying down beside her.

She eyed the pillows. “If you are willing, get a condom on. You’re not a virgin, are you? You know I’m not.”

“I have some experience, but nothing recent. Is this your first time since you had Ana?” Ellen didn’t want to think about that, but nodded, as he fished in a drawer and brought out a condom. “Let’s take it slowly, then.”

It would have been easier to lose herself in the moment, as she had done so many times with Robert, but she had to admit she felt far safer with Solas. He was older, of course; confident without being over-confident.

He started with a backrub, massaging her shoulders through the shirt before unbuttoning it, and sliding his hands inside her bra to caress her breasts. “On your back or front?” he whispered, before kissing her so hard it bruised her lips, and stroking down towards her knickers. He stopped just short; her heart was pounding, hard.

Suddenly she felt nauseous. She wanted to roll over and lie on her front, to let him thrust into her, to feel that unleashed wave of ecstasy again, but terror paralysed her. Solas must have seen it in her eyes. He stopped.

“Ellen, are you all right?” Then, as she burst into tears, he held her close; repeated: “I love you. Slowly’s fine.”

  



	5. Black ice

It had taken a while, but Niamh and Ana were settled down now: Ana in her bed and Niamh in her sleeping bag, lying on the cushions from the sofa. Ellen wished them good night, lit the tealights in her bedroom, and crossed back to the living room. On the way, she collected the bottle of wine, a corkscrew and two of the last three matching mugs – with their pretty soft blue glaze – on the way from the kitchen. _Wow. He even cleaned the hob._

Solas was standing by the fireplace, straightening Aba Shanna’s picture hanging above it. She snuggled in under his arm, resting her head against his chest. “Thanks for doing the washing up. I had to read them four stories.”

“It was no trouble.” He tightened his arm around her, still looking up at the painting. “This is charming.”

It was the only beautiful thing left in the room, a gorgeous oil painting of the entrance to a cave. Vivid green trees surrounded the white limestone. Darkness lay within. “My grandma painted it. It’s a cave in Venezuela.”

“The Parque Nacional Cueva del Guácharo,” responded Solas. His pronunciation was unexpectedly perfect. Ellen looked up in surprise. “I visited the Humboldt Museum beside it. I found myself entranced by hummingbirds.”

The memory appeared to be a sad one, for he was frowning. “Hummingbirds?”

“Venezuelan sylphs, to be specific. Tiny birds: iridescent green, with long violet tails. An endangered species, like too many these days. Perhaps their beauty will preserve them… or perhaps it will not. Most people only see the oilbirds – the guácharo – when they fly out at dusk in search of food. A spectacle indeed, but far less beautiful.”

“Cueva del Guácharo: cave of the oilbirds. It sounds less poetic in English, doesn’t it? Aba Shanna never liked to talk about the past much. I heard more from Robert about South America than I did from her.”

“Aba Shanna?”

“My grandma. She was Venezuelan. Abuela Deshanna, in full. I was only three when my parents… well, I told you that, before. When I came to live with her here. I couldn’t pronounce it, so she was Aba Shanna. We were everything to each other. I’m glad I’ve managed not to sell the picture. There were some other things… well.”

She didn’t need to look around to feel the presence of invisible ghosts: embroidered cushions, vases, armchairs that matched the sofa, the set of woven baskets. She shivered, and turned her mind to more pleasant things, such as tealights and wine. “Shall we go to the bedroom? Sorry. We can’t sit here without the cushions.”

Solas chuckled. “Don’t be sorry. Getting you into bed must be seen as an enjoyable side-benefit. After all, it is Valentine’s Day, even if we’re not out for dinner like Lanaya and Merrill. You’re not your furniture.”

“It’s not like your bed. It’s a single. There’s not really enough room to… well, I suppose there is…”

She’d better stop talking before she embarrassed herself further. At least having him here might exorcise more of the ghosts – memories of Robert, the time when Aba Shanna died. It was a month since she’d burst into tears on Solas, that first time in his flat. She’d gone back there a couple of Saturdays while Merrill or Lanaya looked after Ana. They’d never been back in his bedroom. Watching films and talking had been good, but…

“If you’re tired we can just lie down and sleep,” said Solas, as she stood there staring at the tealights by the bed.

Ellen shook her head. “I want to try this wine you brought. Sorry about the mugs. I sold the wine glasses too.”

Solas levered himself on to the bed, his back to the wall, his long legs stretched out across its width. He looked particularly nice tonight: a dark green shirt, slim-fitting jeans; and she was glad she’d dressed up too. She quirked a smile – maybe she could get him out of those jeans afterwards – and fished the corkscrew out of her pocket.  

A couple of mugs later, she wondered how she’d ended up telling him the whole sordid story of her life. She’d first met Robert at her grandma’s funeral. A handsome man, late twenties, with an actual job. She was in her first year at uni, still living at home, and well, she _owned_ the flat now, and that was strange, no mortgage even.

But because of that, she didn’t qualify for any student loans. They’d lived on Aba Shanna’s pension – which wasn’t even hers, but came from Ellen’s grandad. Robert was the solicitor from the firm who’d held Aba’s will. He’d said he had a way she wouldn’t have to sell the flat, wouldn’t have to re-mortgage it, whatever that meant.

Solas frowned. “So he was your age now, with no known financial expertise, and you let him advise you?”

She cradled the wine in her hands. “I was eighteen. He was very kind. Very confident. Clever. He said it was an unusual situation, that there were conditions in the will that… well, the thing was that I wanted to believe him.”

“He flattered you. He told you that he loved you.” Solas’ voice was as cold as the black ice forecast for tonight.

“Yes,” she sighed, then drained the third mug. “He swept me off my feet. We came back here. Had sex. I signed the papers. I thought it was strange he didn’t leave me a copy, but he said he’d get them copied at their offices. And then he never did. Shit, why am I even telling you all this? I don’t want you to think I’m an idiot.”

He shook his head. “It is not so hard to mislead people. You leave the key things out, sound plausible…”

“Tell them their hair looks beautiful?” she snapped, then immediately regretted it. This evening was all wrong.

“Not if it doesn’t,” he said, firmly. “You say their new style suits them better, or admire their coat. Or shoes. People do this all the time. But most are only hiding tiny lies. Some men hide their entire selves.”

She turned to him, gesturing with the mug. “But why? Why did he lie to me?”

Solas eased the mug from her hands, and got off the bed, placing both mugs on the desk beside her laptop and lab books before returning to sit by her. He frowned. “Ana said her daddy was killed. What happened?”

Ellen sighed. “Robert went to Venezuela, to meet some contacts. Said it was to sort out Aba’s will. He was very cool about it. He’d be back within a few days. We’d just got engaged, had bought a ring at that jewellers on Church Street, where you got the brooch. Opposite your salon. He never knew about Ana. She’s called after my mum. Anastacia Deshanna, Anastacia means resurrection. I wished I’d had one of them here to help me.”

She wasn’t making sense, but she pressed on. Her legs were short, compared to his, stretched out. “I thought he truly loved me. Really. But he loved money… more. That sounds so clichéd. True, though. At least in his case.”

“Why didn’t you go with him to Venezuela? Money? Surely you wanted to travel?”

“Not the money. I mean, I couldn’t have afforded it, but that wasn’t the reason. No, I had second-year exams.”

“So he chose a time to go that he knew you couldn’t make, to meet these “Venezuelan contacts” without you?”

She stammered: “I… yes, that’s what he did. That’s what he did! Hell, I never even realised that. Are you sure?”

“As certain as is possible, assuming I can plausibly predict the man from what you’ve told me.”

His face was grave in the candlelight as she parried, mechanically: “And can you?”

“The key is understanding this: no honest man would have lied to you. Liars tend to keep on lying.”

“I never said he lied!” Her whole body felt frozen. Except her hands, twisting at the hem of her blouse.

“It was not unusual that a handsome solicitor in his late twenties would seduce his eighteen-year-old client?”

“When you put it like that…” She trailed off, then thumped her head against her knees. “I thought I was lucky!”

“Also, he was killed.” She winced. The way he said it was so calm. Forensic, even. A chill of fear spread through her veins. What if telling Solas was another terrible mistake? “How was he killed, Ellen? Do you know?”

“Could we talk about something else?”

That memory was vivid and painful. She’d stood in the hall with the letter from the Venezuelan detective Evan Uris. It turned out Robert wasn’t even a solicitor. The will she’d seen was forged. And Robert Corey had been killed because he’d tried to use her money – and that of others – to cheat on too many brigands at once. Oil, drugs, gold mines. Everything. Señor Uris explained what she must do.

That time, she’d checked out his references; they’d appeared to be legitimate. She’d been paying back Robert’s Venezuelan debts safely via Señor Uris. To make sure that Ana never had to bear that burden of her parentage. He’d tracked down Robert’s next of kin, he’d dealt with all that stuff. For her: just money, and a broken heart.

Solas took a deep breath, and caught her hands in his, detangling them from the new blouse she was ruining. She didn’t want to tell him all of the tangles in her mind. It was a mess – an _embrollo_ – and she was putting it all behind her, year by year. The reassuring statements from Señor Uris had helped.

With a little shake of her head and tears in her eyes, she looked at up at Solas. He returned her gaze with compassion; his face gentle and calm. “Ellen,” he began. “I didn’t ask about this to hurt you. You are unique. You’ve become important to me, more important than I could have imagined. I need to tell you the… truth.”

She didn’t think he’d drunk that much, so this wasn’t some kind of drunk confession. This felt… serious.

“I’m half Venezuelan. My father was Welsh, my mother from Caracas. You knew what Anastacia meant. Did you never wonder about my name, why I was called Solas? It’s not a common name in these parts.”

“I didn’t ask you here for a language lesson,” she shot back, gradually growing more disturbed than reassured by the intensity of his gaze. “Why Solas, then?”

“It means joy, or solace, in Welsh. It means “alone” in Spanish. My mother was never happy here, and named me after her loneliness; her pride in her home country. When I was not much older than Ana, she separated from my father, and took me back to Venezuela. She worked in a hairdressing salon. When I was…”

“Mummy!” The cry at the door was sudden, and heartfelt – Ana with tears streaming down her face, shielding her eyes from the candlelight by rubbing them. “I didn’t like my dream! I’m scared! Mummy…”

She pushed herself off the bed, whatever Solas was about to say forgotten, and scooped up Ana in her arms, kneeling on the floor to pick her up. “It’s all right, poppet, shush now. Mummy’s here. It’s ok.”

Ana’s hair was soft and warm against her face, and she felt the usual rush of comfort that came from holding her. She carried her along the corridor and back into her bedroom, thinking that it was best to soothe her away from Solas. To rock her murmuring soothing words, that came easily even after all that wine. Perhaps Ana had been too hot? She’d turned the heating on for the visitors. Ana wouldn’t be used to it. Niamh was still asleep.

After ten minutes or so, Ana went back into her bed, and Ellen stayed a minute to hold her hand – chubby damp fingers clutched around hers – while she dropped off again. As she let go of it, easing herself back on to her feet, she heard the quiet sound of the flat door opening. As she crossed the room, she thought she heard it close.

Maybe it was Merrill and Lanaya back? They’d said they might drop in on their way home to check that Niamh was fine with staying over. Ellen felt frustrated that her evening with Solas – _alone, hah –_ might be over already, leaving more bitterness than sweetness. _Don’t I deserve at least one night that works out as I wanted?_

She hurried up the corridor, turning halfway into the part of the T she called her hall. The front door was closed, and she couldn’t see any new coats or bags, so she turned the thermostat down and carried on to her room.

Solas wasn’t there. There was a deep depression in the duvet where he’d sat, and the mugs still nestled beside her lab books. She must have missed him in one of the rooms when she’d walked along the corridor.

But he wasn’t in the kitchen, or the bathroom, or the living room, and he certainly wasn’t in Ana’s room.

  


Half an hour later, when Merrill and Lanaya arrived, they took one look at her tear-streaked face and dragged her to the kitchen for a coffee. Words spilled out from Ellen’s mouth as she slammed the sweet coffee down on the table, after a single scalding sip: “I don’t understand! We were talking. Ana had a nightmare. He just left!”

Her friends exchanged a glance, and Merrill left her with Lanaya in order to check the flat again for notes. Then she called out, abruptly, from the living room: “What happened to your grandma’s picture, Ellen?”

In her hurry to see, Ellen knocked the coffee off the table. Blue glazed shards stared back, like eyes, unspeaking.

  



	6. Overcast

_Why had he slashed the picture?_

Ellen skidded along the street, following Merrill and the policewoman. A cold terror had crept into her veins, fighting against the warmth of the wine. Ice underfoot, and a chill wind gusting; overcast, no moon tonight.

 _You can trust me with the kids,_ Lanaya had said, helping Ellen get into her coat, when the inspector had explained why she was here. _You go with Merrill._

The police had found Solas a couple of streets away, unconscious on the ground. Apparently, he’d slipped on the ice, knocked himself out. Another officer was staying with him until the ambulance arrived. They’d found Ellen’s name and address in Solas’ wallet, along with his cards and cash. A passer-by had called them to the scene.

Those were the facts, but they made no sense.

On the way, the ambulance passed them, swift and quiet. It reminded her of losing Aba Shanna, and she found she couldn’t stop shivering. What if he never woke? What if she was cursed to have everybody die around her?

“We’re nearly there,” said Detective Chief Inspector Cassandra Pentaghast. Her name had stuck in Ellen’s mind because it was so strange, she’d seen it on her ID when she’d shown it. Cassandra was the name of bad omens.

_Pentaghast. Five ghosts. Mummy, Daddy, Aba Shanna, Robert, …Solas? Everybody leaves._

_Why did he leave?_

Round a corner on to the avenue, wide and sloping, with old broad trees bare and shifting in the moonlight. The ambulance was halfway up, easy to spot. The paramedics were hunched around him on the ground, and a uniformed officer too, a tall one, blond, looking up and down the road before he spotted them.

Merrill grabbed her hand – she hadn’t bothered with gloves either, her hands were warm – and they ran together, still following the Detective Chief Inspector. They got closer, and Ellen could see his face. His face.

She looked at Merrill.

Merrill looked at her, and back at…

“That’s not Solas,” said Merrill. “Really. That’s not Solas.”

Ellen slithered across the ice to the nearest tree, leaning with a hand against it. She was trying not to throw up.

“That’s not Solas,” she echoed, feeling the world spin. “Merrill, am I really drunk? That looks like Robert.”

She’d meant it as a whisper, but it came out loud enough for Inspector Pentaghast to hear. _In spectre, paint a ghost._ The policewoman’s head whipped round. “Who’s Robert? Do you know this man?”

“Robert was her fiance,” said Merrill, quietly, pulling out her phone from her pocket. “Died a few years ago.”

“I was told he died,” said Ellen, daring to look back at the unconscious man on the stretcher. “I was told…”

Her mind was struggling to work, but anger was defeating nausea. “Why’s he got Solas’ coat on? He stole that. He must have! And his wallet! Why’s he even alive? Is he going to recover?” _Oh, god. Ana._

“If he’s got Solas’ coat, where’s Solas?” asked Merrill, flicking through the photos on her phone. The policeman had started taking notes. Cassandra Pentaghast frowned. One of the paramedics looked up, commenting on the only part she could. “I reckon he’ll recover. A nasty bang when he fell, but he’s coming round.”

“I don’t want to speak to him!” said Ellen, backing away down the street. “I want to know where Solas is!”

“This is what Solas looks like,” said Merrill, showing her phone to the police as the stretcher was loaded into the ambulance. “That was on the way back from my wedding six weeks ago, when we had all that snow.”

“He’s wearing this coat,” said the policeman, nodding thoughtfully. “Or one very like it. Is he missing?”

“Ellen said he left her flat at eleven. Less than an hour ago. She said he didn’t say goodbye, that he left while she was with her daughter Ana.” Merrill paused, and called to Ellen. “Did you try phoning him?”

“Yes,” said Ellen. “Three times. He didn’t answer.” _So much for angels._

“There wasn’t a phone on this man,” said Cassandra Pentaghast. “Can you give me his number?”

Ellen fumbled in her pockets. She’d only brought her keys, no phone or wallet. “If we go back to my flat, yes.”

“Yes. Sergeant Rutherford will go with this man, Robert, in the ambulance. What was his full name?”

She shook her head, as if it would clear the waking nightmare. “Ok, that’s good. I didn’t want to go with… him. His name was Robert Corey. Is Robert Corey. I thought he was dead! Why does he have Solas’ wallet?”

“He doesn’t have the wallet. I have that.” The woman’s tone was dismissive, but Ellen found her bluntness reassuring, like the firm grip Merrill had of her arm, to ensure she didn’t slip on the ice. “We’ll recover the coat later. Let’s walk back to your flat and talk more there. Rutherford, call DI Nightingale and tell her to go direct to Miss Lavellan’s flat and join me there. Get backup for yourself at the hospital.”

The detective’s patient questioning helped to untangle the threads. As they walked up the flight of stairs to her flat, Ellen was still shivering. Dead men walked in other people’s clothes, and living men just… vanished.

A few minutes later, and they were joined by a red-haired woman, also in plain clothes. Nightingale, it seemed.

Ellen sat on the floor in front of the sofa without the cushions on it. _It’s a cup of tea,_ she thought. _A cup of tea._ She took a sip. Lanaya had put sugar in this too. Merrill had found her phone, got her to type her password in, then found Solas’ number on it. Nightingale was searching for the location of his phone on her tablet.

“It’s very close,” she said to her colleague, who was frowning at the cut that ran up and down the right hand side of Aba Shanna’s painting. “Let’s search the outside of the building.”

She had glanced at the curtains, then back at Ellen. With a small shake of her head, Nightingale left the room, closely followed by Cassandra Pentaghast. Ellen watched them, unable to shake the memory of Robert’s face.

Merrill sank down beside her and gave her a hug. Thankfully, the girls were sleeping through all of the comings and goings. She couldn’t even deal with this herself, let alone deal with it for Ana. _Robert… alive?_

“What’s going through your head?” asked Lanaya, who had brought a chair through from the kitchen for the detectives, and was now sitting on it herself.

“A whole lot of… I mean. He was dead. They told me he was dead. And if he wasn’t, why did he never come back to me? Why did he never write? Did he lose his memory, or did he just not care? And why come back now?”

“Who told you he was dead?”

“A Venezuelan detective. Evan Uris. He sent me a letter. I’ve been paying off Robert’s debts…”

“If he’s alive, shouldn’t he be paying his own debts?” said Merrill. “Not to mention money for Ana.”

“Let’s worry about money later,” said Lanaya, to Ellen’s relief. “Did you say that Robert had Solas’ coat on?”

Gulping down tea, Ellen said: “But not his phone! Why take his coat and his wallet, and not his phone?”

“Maybe he was cold,” said Merrill, adding disjointedly, “You’d expect an Evan to be Welsh, not Venezuelan.”

“Perhaps he knew the phone would be traced,” said Lanaya. “That’s how they’re trying to find Solas now, right?”

There were sounds coming up from the ground outside the window, behind the curtain. Two voices: Cassandra Pentaghast’s and Nightingale’s. Lanaya got up, and peered outside the curtains. “Ellen! I think they found Solas!”

Ellen pushed herself up, placing the mug unsteadily on the floor, and stood with Lanaya, looking down.

She wasn’t sure what she had expected to see – the flat was a high ground floor, with a drop of maybe eight or ten feet from this window, and it was dark, this side, away from the street lights – but there did seem to be a figure down there, lying on the ground with the police. Nightingale had a bright white flashlight aimed…

Ellen pushed at the sash window to move it up, and leant out. “Hello,” she called. “What’s going on?”

“Ellen!” came Solas’ voice. “My ankle is sprained. Are you ok? And Ana?” Her heart almost stopped with relief to hear his lilting accent, then stuttered again as she remembered the painting, the cut. Something Merrill said…

“I’m coming down!” she shouted, then drew her head back in to the room. “Lanaya, do you mind…?”

She’d never bothered to take her coat or shoes off, and rushed out again. She had to know the truth.

“There may be a knife somewhere in the grass,” said Nightingale, intercepting her as she rounded the corner of the block. “We haven’t found it yet. He’s in some pain, but you can talk to him. He says an intruder came into your flat through that window. He was in the hall and saw him in the living room. They had a fight. The man threw him out of the window and threw the knife after him. It missed. He assumes the man took his coat and hat. Maybe a disguise, maybe a fake identity. His phone was still on him, but it broke when he fell.”

She only took about half of it in, something about a knife and a fight, just enough to check the ground before she dropped to her knees beside Solas. His face was far too pale. “Why did you not shout for help?”

“Solas was knifed in the shoulder,” said Cassandra, her hands tying a makeshift bandage around his shoulder. “We’ll get him to hospital in Nightingale’s car. Ellen, if you want to come, make sure you have what you need.”

“I may perhaps have fainted,” said Solas, sounding embarrassed. “He… he didn’t hurt you?”

“I didn’t even hear him. Only the door opening and closing. I thought it was you letting in Lanaya and Merrill!”

He was clearly in pain, and she didn’t want to say too much in front of the police, so for a minute she crouched there in silence, letting him clutch her hand. For once her hand was warmer. Merrill brought down her bag, and a blanket to wrap around Solas – a cheap red furry blanket with white wolves on it, from the local charity shop.

But when Cassandra moved away, Ellen murmured: “It was Robert. I thought he was dead!”

Solas looked down at their interlinked hands, grimacing. “I’m sorry. This must be very hard for you.”

She stared at his face. He hadn’t even tried to hide the fact he wasn’t shocked. “You knew?!”

“Not until tonight. Ellen – the man is deadly. You must be extremely careful.”

Ellen sighed. She was drunk, but not incapable of thought. “You’re not just saying that because he knifed you.”

He shook his head, then winced from the pain. “No, I am not. People who return from the dead as he has done are likely to be hiding secrets. Grave secrets, if they will kill to preserve them.”

“Why did he leave the flat, rather than coming to find me? Not that I wish he had done, of course, but…”

“Perhaps because he had got what he came for. You know he does not care about you.”

She bit her lip. That was true, but did he have to say it so bluntly? Her tone sharpened: “And you do?”

His eyes were full of sorrow, and he gripped her hand. “Too much to…. No. I do, and I will prove it to you.”

“By telling me the truth?”

“What truth?” asked Cassandra Pentaghast. Somehow, neither of them had heard her footsteps on the grass, despite the frost. She waited briefly for an answer, then when neither of them spoke, pursed her lips. “Very well. I will need you both to give me witness statements in due course. For now, let’s get to the car.”

As she helped Solas hop to the car, Ellen followed, frowning. Surely he was Evan Uris. Surely, he had lied.

  



	7. Drizzle

Ellen stared out of the window of the taxi, watching streaks of rain glide across the pane. It was quarter to three in the morning – Saturday morning, thankfully – and she needed to get Solas home. The cut hadn’t been as deep as they had feared, but they’d said he needed rest. And so did she.

Her right hand held her phone, and she glanced down again at the texts.

[Ellen] 01:21 – _Stitches being done now. Might be done in an hour. They’re letting him go home if I go with him._

[Lanaya] 01:24 – _Ok. We’re going to sleep in your bed now. All fine here. Sleep in at his place if you want, we can look after the girls tomorrow morning. Might be more comfy!_

Solas had her other hand clasped in his. Woozy from whatever pain relief they’d given him, he had his eyes closed and head resting back against the headrest. Another five minutes to his flat. A good job the police had given Solas back his wallet and he’d given it to her for safe-keeping, or she’d have struggled for the taxi fare.

The police were going to come round in the morning, at eleven or so, take some statements from them both. They’d said they’d not let Robert be discharged until they’d done that, and she’d had to be content with that.

Something about all this didn’t add up right, but she was too tired to figure it out. Whether she could sleep or not, she wasn’t sure either, but Lanaya was probably right: better on Solas’ couch than on the floor of her flat and being woken up by Ana after only a few hours. _How am I going to tell her? **Am** I going to tell her?_

The rain slipped silently across the window. It didn’t help her find the answers.

****

She woke up to the scent of something sweet cooking. The duvet had half slipped off his couch, and she grabbed at it with one hand while checking her phone. _07:41._ Well, it counted for a lie-in these days. At least she’d had a few hours’ sleep. She yawned and pushed herself upright. Solas was standing at the hob, staring at it blankly.

“What are you doing?” she called. He’d lent her a t-shirt this time, a plain dark one that reached to mid-thigh. She collected her smart trousers from where she’d hung them by the radiator, next to the pile of unopened mail, and pulled them on, along with yesterday’s socks. “I thought you’d still be asleep.”

He gave the contents of the large pan a final stir, then began to ladle it out. “Porridge. I thought we should talk before the police get here. There’s honey in that dish, sugar in the jar, and milk in the fridge if you’d like it.”

Ellen sighed, shivering and rubbing her cold forearms. “Tea?”

“I’ll make you some. You can borrow a jumper from my wardrobe if you’re cold.”

By the time she had found and put on a creamy Fair Isle pullover and rolled up its sleeves enough to negotiate the door handles, he had laid the small glass dining table with two bowls of porridge and steaming mugs of tea.

“Something wrong with your tea?” she asked, as he took a sip and screwed his face up. The honey smelled delicious, and she drizzled a generous spoonful across her porridge, before looking up at him again.

He shook his head. “It is tea. I detest the stuff. But this morning… I need to shake the dreams from my mind.”

“The police said they’d be around at eleven. Is your shoulder sore?”

Solas shrugged, and then winced at the pain the gesture cost him. “Yes. I may also need a favour.”

She wanted to look after him, to pretend that everything was fine between them, but she couldn’t be fooled again. “Then you’d better tell me what you didn’t tell me last night first. Tell me everything you know.”

“That would take a long time, dear heart,” he murmured, still frowning at the tea. Then, at her snort of frustration, shook his head slightly, as it to clear it. “I am sorry. I will do my best. Let me take these tablets first.”

Ellen managed to eat four spoonfuls of hot sweet porridge as he pushed out the painkillers from their package. The crockery was of fine make, and she wondered how he afforded this lifestyle on the proceeds of his business.

It was hard not to wonder if the whole world was a lie, concocted just to trap her.

He appeared to be finding it difficult to swallow the painkillers, trying to wash them down with tea. Eventually he managed. She watched his expression harden further, as if the truth were even more tricky to swallow.

“I will have to start a long way back. Ellen… I apologise, for not telling you this earlier.”

She kept on eating porridge. Life had taught her that it was easier to deal with things if you had eaten. “Go on.”

Solas leant back, hands clasped around the half-empty mug of tea. “My father was an engineer. He worked for a large multinational oil company. They had operations in Venezuela. That’s how he met my mother.”

“Did she cut his hair?”

He chuckled, but the sound was a melancholy one. “Only metaphorically. She persuaded him that what the company was doing then was wrong. For the environment and the people. She was poor, but well educated. Wise.” He thought for a moment, then glanced back up at her. His eyes were sad. “She would have liked you.”

“Is she still in Venezuela…” she began, then stopped, arrested by the small shake of his head.

“She was killed while I was here at university. Fifteen years ago next week. My brother Evan found her.”

“I’m so sorry,” whispered Ellen. Then she frowned, a spoonful of porridge halfway to her mouth. “Wait. Your brother’s called Evan?”

He did not meet her eyes, but stared down at the tea. When he spoke, his voice was carefully neutral. “He was, yes. He was also murdered. Six months ago, driving back to Caracas. A bomb underneath his car.”

Her eyes went wide. “That’s horrible!”

“We hadn’t spoken for years. But yes, it was a shock. It seems we are the survivors.”

“But why? Why does everybody die?”

Solas simply shook his head, unable or unwilling to answer. Ellen gazed past him to the window and the growing light. The hours until she had planned to get back to Ana suddenly seemed too long. Yet she had to know.

“Was your brother’s surname Harrell, like yours?”

His brow creased. “No, he took my stepfather’s name. Uris. Evan Uris. Why do you ask?”

The confusion on his face and in his voice seemed genuine, but if so, this was one hell of a coincidence. Disregarding his question, and not bothering with tact – _after all, he woke me up –_ Ellen decided to press on.

“What was his job?”

“Police detective. I still find it strange he didn’t check over the car before he drove off. Despite our long estrangement, I was his next of kin. I had to go back last September for the _encuesta,_ the inquest. Nothing came of it, most certainly due to bribery. But afterwards, a woman called Sofia contacted me. She’d worked with Evan. She wouldn’t tell me much, but inferred the cause of Evan’s death was a man named El Antiguo.”

A horrid suspicion was creeping into her bones. “Did she say anything more about him?”

“Not at the time. But Sofia also had a photograph of an English girl, who she thought might be an accomplice of him, still living in England. She’d found the woman’s name by searching for related photos on the internet.”

“Why did she tell you this?”

“I assume because she thought I might be able to assist,” said Solas smoothly. “I was going back to England and she knew that I was in a position to move more freely there than she would be.”

“So why did you come here?”

“This is where you were studying,” and added, unnecessarily, as Ellen thrust back the chair to get to her feet, unsteady with rage: “You were the woman in the photograph.”

She turned on him, hissing across the table: “When we first met… you… were stalking me?”

“You seemed the best hope that I had of doing what I could to put things right.”

“But… you couldn’t have known that I would be looking for a haircut.”

“I found you purely by chance that night. I was planning to target you with vouchers once the salon was open.”

“Why hairdressing?” _Estrangement… inferred… purporting… at university._ “You’re good at it. But surely you’ve not always been a hairdresser.”

“A man should have a useful trade,” he parried. “That’s what my mother told us when she made us learn. I am also an artist, an occasional literary critic and an environmental activist. None of those pay the bills as well.”

“How do you afford all this then?”

He shrugged. “Most of the items I own are inherited. I manage the rent and my bills like you do. Ellen… I’m sorry. I should have told you earlier. But I was afraid. At first I thought you might truly be involved in my brother’s death. And later, I was frightened you would hate me if you knew. You’d think that I had lied.”

“You did lie,” said Ellen through her teeth, still cold with anger. Half of her wanted to turn and leave, go to Ana, and never see him again. The other half… was crying out in sympathy for him. _You know what it’s like to grieve._

“I am sorry, dear heart,” he said. “You are even more beautiful in real life. I am glad you were not involved…”

“Involved in what?”

“El Antiguo. When Merrill told me about your fiance Robert, and how he’d left you, I contacted Sofia with the name. She confirmed that it was one of his aliases. El Antiguo was also Roberto Corypheoso, or Robert Corey.”

“That can’t be right! What is this, another thing that the stupid English girl got wrong?”

Solas leapt to his feet as her voice rose higher, and she let him pull her into his arms, cradling her against his unwounded shoulder as she burst into tears. “Don’t say that,” he urged, stroking her hair. “Don’t say that.”

“I try to start my life again,” she sobbed. “And what do I do? I end up in love with a man who’s stalking me.”

“I never expected to fall in love with you either,” said Solas. “But I will not abandon you like he did.”

She looked up at him, swaying with shock and tiredness, wanting to believe. It seemed the part of her that wanted to stay had won, and the other part could reason with her later. “Solas… I’m sorry about your brother. I appreciate that you told me. And Robert… the police… What should we do? What should we do?”

“I wanted to tell you before they got here. Much of what I have said is hearsay. In case it is wrong, we should stick to the facts. I don’t think that Chief Inspector Pentaghast would tolerate conjecturing. Also…”

He had broken off, blushing slightly. “What is it, Solas?”

“The police may ask us why there is a cut in your painting. We should agree on what we say about that.”

“Why?”

His lips twisted in a triumphant smirk. “Because Robert Corey left your flat with important papers that he’d taken from within your grandma’s painting. The police did not find them on him.”

She tightened her arms around him, as if he too might vanish. “How do you know?”

Solas loosened her grip, turned her around, and pointed across the room. “Because I have them.”

  



	8. Clearing

Ellen stared blankly in the direction that Solas’ finger had pointed. Had it not been for the taste of honey in her mouth, she’d have thought that she was dreaming. She couldn’t even tell what he was pointing at.

“These… important papers, are they behind the radiator?”

He had stepped back, and he frowned as she glanced back at him. “How would they get behind the radiator?”

Instead of telling her directly he waited, as if this were a puzzle to unravel. _It’s my life!_

Perhaps she was too stupid to appreciate the answer. Ellen stiffened and fell silent, trying to get her mind and eyes to focus. Some mail lay by the radiator.

When they’d arrived here, early this morning, there’d been a large brown envelope lying on the doormat. Solas had picked it up, grimacing as he bent down. She’d been more concerned to get him into his bed. She couldn’t remember him doing anything more than tossing it on to the table by the radiator, certainly nothing to draw attention to it. But she’d seen it this morning, addressed simply: _SOLAS_. Wait. Someone else must be involved!

 _Ok._ “That envelope? You picked it up when we got in… and put it there. But why didn’t you tell me this then?”

“I thought you’d wonder how it got here. It seemed better to have this entire conversation after we both had had an opportunity to sleep. I… am not a monster. I am aware that this must be painful for you.”

He held out his arms again, cuddling her close. Hard to resist, this feeling of comfort. Even though she was still angry, it felt so good to have him here to hold her. And he’d made breakfast. _Mmm, porridge._

Her voice was quiet against his chest. “I don’t know where to start. Robert. These papers. Ana. You. The police.”

Solas stroked her hair, smoothing it down behind her ears. She did the same for Ana when she was upset.

“The police shouldn’t be here for a few hours,” said Solas, his voice deep and calm and comforting. “I presume they will keep an eye on Robert Corey. If you want to call Lanaya and check that Ana is ok, please do. But perhaps you would wish to look inside the envelope first. I admit that I am intrigued to see what’s in it.”

“Oh,” said Ellen. “You don’t know either?”

There was a slight pause before he answered, and his hand stilled on her hair. “How could I know?”

He wasn’t as good at lying as he thought he was, even if it was lying by omission. Ellen disentangled herself, and walked across the room to pick up the envelope. It was sealed with sellotape. She weighed it in her hands, looking back at him. Rather light, for something important. Important enough for Robert to break in and steal.

Still watching him closely, Ellen kept her tone deliberately pleasant. “That wasn’t quite an answer. You seem to know a lot of things! Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” _Or am I practice for you talking to the police?_

He strode over. The tallness which seemed so reassuring in a lover might be intimidating, if she were his foe.

_I’m not his enemy. He’s not my enemy. Is he?_

Solas avoided her gaze, and stared out of the window instead, looking down the street. She followed his gaze, then, out of habit, monitored the weather. Stratus clouds dissipating, leaving blue sky in their wake. Clearing.

She was wondering if she should open the envelope, regardless of her plan to test him, or even take up his suggestion to call Lanaya, when he gave a slight shake of his head, and appeared to return to the present.

He looked at his watch, then sighed. “Indeed, we should continue, before I need to leave for work.”

“You’re going to work? What about your shoulder? What about the police?”

Ellen’s hand went out to his arm, then fell back without touching it. His face was a mask, impenetrable.

“There is an appointment at nine that I must do myself,” he said, pulling his shirt cuff back over his watch. “I do not wish to disappoint the customer, and Cole will not satisfy her. In fact you know her: Vivienne de Fer.”

The news anchor was notoriously fussy about her looks, and Ellen gasped. “Vivienne gets her hair cut by you?”

“Provided she can order me about, she does consent to let me style her hair, yes. But we digress.”

He glanced at the envelope, and she nodded. “So. Don’t lie. **Do** you know what’s in the envelope?”

“If my suspicions – and Sofia’s – are correct, it ought to contain the deeds to a tract of land owned by your grandmother’s family. A tract of land whose value has increased significantly in recent years.”

“Land? I thought Aba only owned the flat.”

“I believe the will was amended. Not by her, naturally, but by Robert Corey. Or his associates.”

“But that’s illegal!”

He let out a short bark of mirthless laughter, and turned to look down at her. His eyes were like molten lead, like a stormy sky over an active volcano. “As were the killings in my family.”

She flinched instinctively, still clutching the envelope, but then the ash cleared, like the clouds outside, and he controlled himself. “It is easier, in this country, to forget how thin the veneer is between civilization and anarchy. Like a veil, it can be drawn aside, revealing horror and brutality on the one side… and great beauty on the other.”

“Thank God I didn’t marry him!” said Ellen, following her own train of thought. “I can’t believe...”

He blinked in surprise, then his lips twitched. “Are you thinking of a bridal veil, dear heart?”

“Don’t laugh. It’s not exactly funny, finding that the father of your child has come back to haunt you.”

“He is not a ghost.”

“I know he’s not a ghost! I saw him! What did you mean about veils?”

“The veil I meant is in the mind. It is thinner in some places.”

She blinked up at him. “Thinner?”

Solas ran his hand along the windowsill, gesturing at the people walking up and down the street. “We are all anarchists at heart. People follow rules because they believe the people they encounter follow them. How many people take the time to decide for themselves what is good, and listen to…”

He stopped, and stared down at the street again, as if looking for something missing. Then he turned to Ellen.

“My apologies. This is no time for philosophical debate. We should open the envelope. The police may wish to test the contents for fingerprints. Do you have any gloves that you can wear?”

She passed the envelope to him. “In my coat. It’s in the hall. I’ll go and get them.”

As she fished out the gloves from her pocket, she heard an urgent knocking at the door, and a voice.

“Solas! Let me in! Let me in!”

It was Cole’s voice. Solas stepped past her to the door, still holding the envelope, and let him in.

“What is it, Cole? I thought you would be setting up the shop, not coming here. We have Vivienne de Fer at…”

Cole looked terrified and out of breath, his pale hair hanging limply around his head under his khaki ranger hat.

“Has something happened, Cole?” asked Ellen. “Shall I get you a glass of water?”

“No… time for… that,” breathed Cole. “I got up… found them in the salon this morning. Lock broken, breaking…”

Ellen watched as the instinctive flash of anger in Solas’ eyes was replaced by fear. He took a breath before he spoke, obviously trying to keep his emotions in check. “Who was it, Cole? You can speak in front of Ellen.”

“That man from last night, and a woman, and another man. I waited until they’d gone, and then I came here. Running. I didn’t trust the phones, just like you said. Broken, breaking, bugging, beeping.”

“Did they follow you here?”

“Wait. Cole brought you the envelope?” asked Ellen. “Cole?!”

He nodded, still wheezing slightly. “I put the papers… in an envelope, like Solas said. I brought it here. He gave me a key before. Keep key safe, in case the cruel kinds come, he said. I did that right, didn’t I?”

The last was addressed to Solas, who said: “Yes, you did very well, Cole. But now, we cannot risk it if they followed you. Did they have a car?”

“I don’t remember. Wait! There was a car on the road. When I looked out in the morning. Silver, shiny.”

Solas was already striding across the living room to inspect the street, having flicked the light switch off as he passed, with a gesture to Ellen and Cole to stay back, away from the window.

His flat was high up, on the third floor, at the top of a modern block of flats.

Ellen ignored his gesture, and looked out beside him. “Surely they can’t see us with the light off. Let me look.”

“Don’t underestimate them,” said Solas, but he didn’t push her away, nor Cole, who joined him on the other side. “There are three silver cars down there. Does any of them match the one you saw?”

“Maybe? Cars all look the same to me. I prefer trees.”

Solas frowned, but didn’t comment further. He scanned the street again. “Do you know that man?” he said, his voice sharp. He pointed to a heavy-set, dark-haired individual, wearing a bomber jacket and rucksack, standing leaning against the wall of the printing company buildings opposite, and looking up at the flats.

“Yes! He… that was the man with the other man. Too many men. I’m sorry.”

“It’s not Robert,” said Ellen, thankful at least for that. “Cole, the man you saw last night, the one you… took the papers from. Was he in Solas’ salon this morning?”

“That’s right,” said Cole. “But this one is the other one, you see?”

She thought she sort of saw. But… “Solas, shouldn’t Robert be in hospital? Being guarded by the police?”

“I told you he was dangerous,” said Solas. “Come away from the window now, both of you. We need to plan.”

“Shouldn’t we call the police?”

“No… no… not the police!” cried Cole. “They will put me back! I don’t want to go! I don’t want to go!”

“There are… considerations,” said Solas. “I will do my best to protect you, Cole, but we may need the police. You understand that, don’t you?”

The young man shook his head, and curled up on the floor, shuddering. Solas knelt down beside him, murmuring something in his ear she couldn’t hear. Ellen’s phone started ringing, and she ran across the room to find her handbag, stumbling in the darkness. Before she could flick open the screen, it had stopped ringing. She cursed.

With pounding heart, Ellen read: _Missed call: Lanaya: 08:26._ She called back, but there was no answer.

She crossed the room, and put a shaking hand on Solas’ shoulder. “Solas… why’s Lanaya not responding?”  

  



	9. Cold and clear

“Try calling them again in a few minutes,” said Solas, when Ellen had tried Merrill’s phone, and the landline.

Ellen nodded, biting her lip. Her hands had gone all clammy. “But what if something’s happened?”

Solas didn’t look up from where he knelt by Cole, studying his face. “You must not go there. It may be unsafe.”

The young man had his eyes tightly shut, hands over his ears, and Ellen wished she could escape from reality as easily as that. She paced up and down the room, staring at her phone. _08:28._

Words tumbled from her mouth. “Lanaya tried to phone. What if something’s happened to Ana? I need to go there. I need to see her! I should not have left her there with them. What if…?”

“Breathe, Ellen,” said Solas. He patted Cole’s shoulder, before getting to his feet. He put his hands on Ellen’s shoulders and looked down into her face. “You must stay calm in order to focus on what’s truly important.”

“It’s easy for you to say. It’s not your daughter!” spat Ellen back. Solas’ expression grew distant, hands tightening on her shoulders, and she remembered: “Your brother…! Shit. I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I’m not thinking straight.”

She took a few deep breaths, watching Solas’ face relax slightly as she pulled back from the brink of panic. His back was to the window, blocking it from her view. In the dim light from the hall he looked tired and old.

“I will go to the salon, from where I will telephone for the police,” he said, glancing down at Cole. “Cole, you need not see them. I am relying on you to ensure no harm comes to Ellen. You know what the safe routes are.”

Cole made a small noise, which might have been assent. Solas frowned as if unsatisfied, and added, almost absent-mindedly, to Ellen: “There are some ripe pears in the fruit bowl. It is probably best to eat them today.”

“I like pears,” said Cole from the floor. He levered himself up into a cross-legged position, and began to sing: “ _On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me: a partridge in a pear tree. On the second…_ ”

Solas nodded. “He’ll be all right in a few minutes. Let him sing. Come, dear heart.”

Ellen followed him out into the hall, where he gestured to where his long wool overcoat usually hung. “The police said they would bring it when they came this morning,” he said, then lifted his hand in a familiar gesture, running it backwards over his shaven head. “And I shall miss my hat. But… it may be better this way.”

He looked at his watch, and Ellen checked her phone once more. _08:30._ “I want to try calling again,” she said.

“Call them while I get ready to go out,” said Solas. At his bedroom door he paused. “Ellen, we will help you get through this. Cole has a compassionate nature. He also has many other skills which may be of use. Talk to him.”

Ellen shivered. “You do think something might have happened? Do you think Robert might have gone back?”

“Anything is possible. Indeed, you may wish to check the news on your phone, or watch the television.”

Thank goodness it was Florianne’s turn to present the weather today, not hers, and... “What will you tell Vivienne? She’s on today.”

“As little as possible. For all our sakes I would prefer to avoid any undue publicity. Does she know about us?”

“Not as far as I know,” said Ellen.

 _Five g-o-old rings_ was sounding from the living room, from down on the floor where Cole still lay. She lowered her voice. “Is Cole… ok? Why does he want to avoid the police?”

“You might ask him yourself,” said Solas, not unkindly. “I expect he’s hungry. Give him pears and milk. He’ll talk.”

“Pears and milk?” She waved her phone at him, as it ticked over to _08:30._ “Solas, shall I...?”

“Yes. I must get ready now. It will take me ten minutes to walk to the salon, and I must call the police before Vivienne arrives. I will ask for Cassandra. I will insist that someone checks your flat. Please, take care.”

Ellen nodded, the phone already at her ear. The dialling tones were tinny and they went on far too long. She forced herself to believe that Lanaya and Merrill had the girls safe, that they’d gone out without their phones. She left quick messages on each voicemail, asking them to ring her.

Lanaya had phoned her first. She cursed again that she’d missed it in the dark.

“Nine ladies dancing, eight maids-a-milking,” sang Cole. Not entirely tuneful, yet she found it strangely comforting. A thread she knew how to follow, even in her distress: “…six geese a-laying, five go-old rings...”

Footsteps behind her, and she jumped as arms in an unfamiliar dark green coat came around her waist. He placed a gentle kiss on the top of her head, and she could smell the scent of pine forests. _Solas._

He held her close, as if willing his own strength into her. For a few moments they stood like that, the back of her head resting underneath his chin. It briefly pushed away the sharpness of her fear, and she was shaken by the realisation of how much she loved – and trusted! – him. A rock to cling to, when the winds howled and the tides were raging. _Thus Andromeda, before the sea monster came. But wait… wasn’t Perseus the hero?_

She shook her head. Not the time for old Greek legends. “You should go,” she whispered. 

“Stay strong, Ellen,” he said, his arms tightening one last time. “And, unless this flat becomes unsafe, stay here with Cole until the police arrive. Phone me if you must, but be aware that others may be listening in.”

Solas finally released her so she could turn around. Ellen gasped in surprise. Above the quilted Barbour jacket, well-worn as if often scrubbed clean, he had brown hair, tied back in a ponytail. “Is that a wig?” she asked.

He smiled thinly, and restrained himself from shrugging. “What else would it be? I made it from my own hair some years ago. I expect to draw the attention of the man watching these flats. I am sure he will have photographs of all of us by now. With such a poor disguise, it may lead him to underestimate me.”

She shrank back against the wall, aghast. “You think they are that well organised?”

He picked up a rucksack and eased it on to his back. It looked… heavy? She could see his shoulder was still painful. “They are,” he said. “And we are running out of time. This way I might save you, at least for now.”

“Solas, I love you,” said Ellen, suddenly frightened as much for him as for herself and Ana. “Don’t risk your life!”

The confident mask he’d worn since last night faded away, and anguish crossed his face. “My love…”

He pulled her upright away from the wall, favouring his right arm. Her head tipped back to meet his kiss, hard and desperate, rough upon her lips, as if…

 _As if… he wasn’t coming back?_ All the fears she’d had last night, when he had vanished…

“I will never forget you,” he said, as he unchained and opened the door.

Before she could think what to say, he’d gone. She put a shaking hand up to her lips. _He’s gone._

 

“He hurts, an old pain from before.”

The voice was Cole’s, and she couldn’t shake the memory of the way that Solas had looked, as if an old samurai hero from the movies had taken up the burden of war against his will.

She span around, her voice a lash. “You talk as if this is normal, a hairdresser going off to “draw the attention” of some maniac who’s watching his flat. A maniac he thinks is working for my ex-fiance. My **dead** ex-fiance!”

Cole sighed, and led her back into the living room, towards the kitchenette. “For him, it is normal. It still hurts.”

“Why? Why is it normal for him?” She sank down on the sofa, watching as Cole poured milk into a saucepan to heat it, and got two plates out from a cupboard, then a chopping board, and finally a knife from the block.

“Where we grew up, every child learnt to fight,” said Cole. “Fear, but don’t freeze. Focus and fight.”

His voice was light and musical, but not Welsh. “Where we grew up…? But you don’t sound Welsh, Cole.”

“That’s not where I met him. He told me to tell you. He said you’d understand. I don’t belong here.”

“You don’t… belong here?” said Ellen, watching the ease with which Cole cut the pear into perfectly neat cubes. The knife flicked back and forth, flashes of silver reflecting the sunlight outside. A cold, clear day, as she’d predicted… what felt like years ago, yesterday morning. She got up to check: the man was gone. No sign of Solas.

“I don’t want to go back,” he explained, the knife poised in mid-air. “Forced on a flight, with straps and sirens.”

It took a few moments for it to click, her eyes and mind focused on the knife, attention split between worry for Ana, worry for Solas and for herself, and even… she had to admit it, worry for Robert as well. She’d loved him, after all, before she hated him. And he was alive. What _had_ he got himself into? And, was Cole really… reliable?

_Forced on a flight…_

But then it did click. “Cole… you’re here illegally? You’re… Venezuelan? But you don’t look…” She trailed off as he nodded, guilty of the same casual confusion of race and nationality that had dogged her all her life.

She’d never truly paid attention to Cole. He’d always been in the background, making tea or sweeping the floor, but now she stared him in the face, she realised it. Pale hair, pale eyes, always wearing a hat… _he’s albino._

“I’m albino,” he said, echoing her thoughts precisely. “I didn’t belong there either. Solas says I do, but I didn’t.”

Ellen walked across to sit at the dining table, slightly wary of the knife. “Does Solas think you should go back?”  

The knife flickered then plunged into the pears again, finishing the job. Cole didn’t respond, but instead poured out two mugs of milk, his hand surprisingly steady now. Ellen took the opportunity to add: “Sorry. I’m mixed race myself. I shouldn’t have assumed where you were from, from what you sounded like or looked like.”

“Most people don’t see me,” said Cole. He’d ignored her – very British, hah! – attempt at smoothing over her political incorrectness. “In Venezuela, some called me a ghost. Here, they just don’t see me.”

“Isn’t that a benefit, if you’re here illegally?” asked Ellen, accepting the milk, a spoon, and a plate of pear cubes. Strange to drink hot milk at this time in the day, but if it worked for soothing babies, perhaps it was a good idea.

Cole slid his pear cubes into the milk, and ate them with a spoon. “If no-one sees me, am I truly alive?”

“Solas sees you,” said Ellen, adding, as she thought of it: “It must be a risk for him to employ you.”

“He says it isn’t. The real Cole was real. Then he died. I found him near the airport. I couldn’t help him, so I took his passport and his tickets. The people on the desk didn’t look at me, because I was with Rhys. Rhys is kind. Solas knows him too. Maybe he will help us. Perhaps we should go now, to find him?”

“No! I need to stay until the police get here. That’s what Solas said. Surely you can hide here somewhere?”

Cole looked disappointed, but did not seem inclined to challenge her. He ate four spoons of pears and milk before he nodded. “Yes. Solas said you were kind, you would understand. He knows I’m good at hiding.”

Ellen was suddenly angry again with Solas for this, whether or not it was his fault. “And what is **Solas** good at?”

Cole chuckled. It was the only time she’d ever seen him grin, his pale pink lips two lines of colour in his face. “Voice ringing with fullness from both worlds, guiding me to the shining places. Solas is good at… everything.”

  



	10. Brisk

“What does your daughter look like?” asked Nightingale, as they stopped at the third red light. Cole still looked as if he was about to open the front passenger door and make a run for it. “Do you have a recent photo?”

Ellen got her hands to work long enough to open up the photo app. _You must stay calm,_ he’d said, before he’d gone. And apparently this wasn’t enough of an emergency for the man at the wheel to skip traffic lights... unlike the stream of ambulances and fire engines screeching past the other way, heading for the hospital.

She scrolled to recent pictures of Ana and the others, forcing herself to be calm enough to explain them.

“This is Ana, my daughter. This is Niamh, Merrill’s niece. That’s Merrill. That’s Lanaya. And… this is Solas.”

Nightingale nodded, maintaining her brisk professional manner. If the woman had shown any sympathy, thought Ellen, she couldn’t have kept herself together. “If we don’t find them at your flat, or locate them soon, I’ll ask you to email these pictures to the address on this card. Do you have any of the man you saw this morning?”

Ellen shook her head, then took the card, scanning first the name – _DI Leliana Nightingale_ – and then the email, and then the department. _Oh._ “You’re not from the Haven police station, Inspector.”

She saw Cole flinch, but the car had started, and he gripped the seat instead. When he’d watched the news with her, he’d been so angry that he’d decided he wouldn’t even try to hide, but now he was back to being terrified again. Ellen hoped the police would assume he’d been freaked out by the situation, not by them.

“Rylen is,” said Nightingale, indicating the man in front. “I’m on secondment. I specialise in counter-terrorism.”

“She’s no’ bad at it, either,” said Rylen, speaking for the first time. His accent was Scottish, and held more than a hint of pride in his colleague. “You’re lucky to have her on yer case, Miss Lavellan.”

“I’d rather not be a case at all,” said Ellen, gulping back nausea. She stared down at Ana in her purple dress from the wedding, looking so very innocent and happy _._ _09:25._ “Do you think the Chief Inspector will be at my flat yet? You said she was going there from the hospital. I don’t know why no-one’s answering their phones.”

She was speaking quickly, too quickly, and she closed her eyes and took a breath. “Should I call Solas?”

“I spoke with Solas half-an-hour ago,” said Nightingale. “As I said at the flat, we agreed that I would come to you straightaway, and that he would stay to let my team into the salon, to see if there was anything they could find there. He said he had an appointment with a client at nine, but that he expected to be done by ten.”

“Yes,” said Ellen. “Sorry, you said that. I actually know her. It’s Vivienne de Fer.”

“No, really?” Nightingale’s lips twitched. “Trust Vivienne to be in the right place at the right time.”

“I hardly think it’s the right place,” said Ellen, frostily.

“Wherever Solas is, that becomes the right place,” said Cole. Rylen cast a sideways glance at him, as they navigated the roundabout. The indicator clicked on – _tick tock tick tock –_ and Ellen’s heart pounded, thinking of Solas’ brother’s death. _A car bomb._ The break-in at her flat… the bomb at the hospital… the salon… the man…

“I know Vivienne well,” said Nightingale, ignoring Cole. She had a nice voice, with the faintest of French accents. “We were at the same school in Paris. I also met Josie there, Rylen.”

“Josie?”

“Josephine Montilyet, our legal advisor. I expect Cassandra will want to you to meet her later regarding those papers you showed us, Ms Lavellan. Josie always likes a good fraud case.”

“Cassandra? I’m Ellen, by the way. Please call me that.”

The woman nodded, with a swift appraising glance down the next side street as they passed it. “I will. Chief Inspector Pentaghast is Cassandra, for her sins. Rylen’s uniform, so he prefers Rylen, but you can call me Leliana. Formalities are all very well in court, but we’re on the same side here. Particularly if this is a hostage situation.”

Ellen froze. “Do you think it might be?”

“Ellen, we know that Robert lied to you. Assuming we believe both you and Solas, we know that he’s prepared to injure people. Cole here thinks him or his people went to Solas’ salon, looking for documents we now know that you have. With everything that’s going on this morning, why do you think they can spare us to be here?”

“I hadn’t really… I don’t…” said Ellen, stammering. They were nearly at her flat, just a few streets away now.

Leliana’s voice was gentle, coaxing. “Ana is Robert Corey’s daughter, am I right?”

“I… I didn’t… I didn’t tell you that!”

“I saw Robert last night in the hospital. After we left you and Solas in A&E, Cassandra and I went to see him, to make sure he was being watched. He was only just awake. God knows how he escaped the bomb there.”

“I can’t believe it… all those people,” said Ellen. Then, selfishly, she added: “But what’s this got to do with Ana?”

Leliana pointed at the photo, her lips a thin line. “She looks just like him, Ellen! Your dark-haired friend – Merrill – told Cassandra last night that Robert was your fiance, that you thought he died a few years ago. I looked at the records on our way here. The dates match. And… you didn’t deny that Ana was his daughter.”

Ellen nodded. “Ok, I… I get it. But he’s not… he’s not on the birth certificate. He didn’t bring her up. She’s mine!”

“We’re going to find her, Ellen,” said Leliana. Something in her tone made Ellen glad that the Inspector was on _her_ side. It reminded her of someone. Who was it?

But before she could place the thought, Rylen cut in, saying firmly: “Aye, that’s right. We’ll find your kid.” To Leliana, he added: “Is this near enough her block, do you think?”

The old Victorian terrace streets looked… remarkably normal, as if nothing terrible could ever happen here.

****

She’d given her keys to Leliana, and waited in the car with Cole as they’d instructed, with the doors locked. They’d parked around the corner, to be out of sight. The police wanted to check the flat to make sure everything was secure, before they’d let Ellen go in there herself. They’d tried the numbers again first. Still no answer.

“Where can they have gone?” asked Ellen, after a minute of sitting in silence with Cole. “Lanaya and Merrill, with the girls. They were up late last night, I didn’t think they’d head out so early. Maybe they went swimming.”

“You’re worried they’ve all been kidnapped,” said Cole. It felt comforting, to have him put her fears into words so easily. “You were worried it might have been worse, but she talked about hostages, not bodies.”

He swivelled around in the front passenger seat so that he could face her, offering her a hand to hold. Ellen squeezed it tightly. “I’m so worried, Cole,” she said. “What if he’s got Ana? What would he do with her?”

“He wants the documents. You could give them to him. Then you would both be happy.”

Ellen glared at him. “I don’t want to give him anything! I’ve been freezing and living on practically nothing for the last five years, with all my money going to paying off his debts!”

“But you were happy, with Ana. Are happy. There’s more to life than money.”

“You’re right,” said Ellen, slowly. “But I don’t think Solas got those documents back, intending I should give them away.”

“Solas finds it harder here,” said Cole. “He finds it easier in Venezuela, where he can seek out treasures no-one else can find. Most people find it harder there, but not him. I wonder what it would be like, if I went back. Flight, fleet, flickering, free. I wouldn’t have to worry about them binding me.”

His hand gave hers a final squeeze, a slightly damp one, before she let it go. “I’m glad you’re here.”

They sat in silence for a time, Ellen closing her eyes to ignore the incongruous brightness of the windy winter’s day. She tried to concentrate on breathing, like she’d learnt in the yoga class at uni. Robert hadn’t been around when she gave birth. Merrill and the midwife had helped her then. Her mind drifted on to wondering what Solas would be like, if he had kids, and came back around to the vivid memory of his last, desperate kiss.

“Why did Solas take a rucksack with him, when he left?” she asked suddenly. “I’ve never seen him with one.”

Cole looked back at her, frowning. “Was it green?”

“Yes, that’s right. Didn’t you see it?”

“No, I didn’t want to…” He broke off, sounding as embarrassed as any teenager might. “You were, um…”

“He was kissing me,” said Ellen. “As if…”

“He was kissing you as if he wasn’t coming back? Yes, he was wearing the green rucksack,” said Cole, shaking off his inhibitions. “He wears that when he’s going to go away for a long time. He told me that.”

“When did he tell you that?”

“He invites me for dinner twice a week. Tuesdays and Thursdays, to teach. He is teaching me to read.”

“Oh,” said Ellen. Her mind was flitting here and there, with Leliana and Rylen in her flat, or with Ana, Niamh, Lanaya and Merrill… wherever they were, or with Solas, cutting Vivienne’s hair, of all things. Or at the hospital. It caught up with the conversation. “Your English is very good.”

“I came here a while ago,” he said, not giving any more details. “But I need to learn to read better. Solas said it would be useful, whatever I decided. We read in English on Tuesdays, and Spanish on Thursdays.”

“That’s very organised,” said Ellen, automatically. She glanced down at her phone. The minutes were ticking by very slowly indeed. _09:47._ “I wonder if I should phone Solas at ten. Or text him now. Maybe he wore the green rucksack to pretend that he was going away?”

Cole shook his head, but said: “Solas is good at tricking people. The phones at the salon were bugged. He kept on using them, so they didn’t know he knew… but we knew.”

“Did he tell you who bugged them?”

“He said it was better if I didn’t know too much. Then I couldn’t tell, if anyone asked.”

“He seems to like keeping secrets,” said Ellen. She couldn’t keep the sharpness from her voice. This time yesterday, she’d been looking forward to a romantic Valentine’s night with him. And now, everyone was **gone**. Although… at least they’d not been at the hospital when the A &E wing exploded. _All those people…_

“He thinks that it protects us all, if we don’t know too much.”

Ellen shook her head fiercely. “Maybe it just protects **him**. Maybe he should learn to trust people!”

“You trusted Robert, and you ended up with Ana,” said Cole, softly, but Ellen had stopped listening. Leliana and Rylen were coming around the corner. Their expressions were set and angry, and she damped down panic.

“I’m sorry, Ellen, it’s empty. No sign of Ana, or your friends. But someone else had been there.” Leliana got into the car beside her, waving a DVD. “They’d left this playing on your laptop. I’ll explain on the way to the station.”

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 20 March 2017: belated apology... I will come back to this and finish it, but am currently working on a post-canon Solavellan story which kidnapped the muse. I also need to wrestle the plot for this one into something manageable. Sorry, Ellen!


	11. Chilly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back after a long hiatus, and planning to finish this one now! I made some tiny changes to Chapter 10, but everything else is as it was.

Ellen gripped her phone, feeling more and more sick. She wasn’t used to travelling in a car and Rylen’s driving was too fast for comfort. Solas’ t-shirt and pullover under her coat. She wasn’t even wearing her own clothes.

Bits and pieces fluttered in her mind, like tissue paper and feathers after crafting.

_Ana. Ana. Ana. Ana._

She felt Leliana staring across at her, and apologised. “Sorry. I can’t think straight. Where’s Ana?”

“We don’t know yet,” said Leliana, speaking slowly and clearly, “but we now have leads to follow. You mustn’t go back to the flat for now. We’ll find you somewhere to stay. If there are things you need we’ll send somebody for them. Rylen – I expect that’ll be your job.”

“Ok,” said Ellen, numbly, as the man in uniform nodded, and took another roundabout at speed. It wasn’t as if she could disagree, since Leliana still had her keys. She pointed at the DVD. “What’s on that?”

“Not anything from today,” said Leliana. “We’ll talk about it when we get there.” She leaned forward to speak to Cole. He’d been staring forward, his hands clenched tightly. “We don’t need you to come in to the station, Mr…”

“Cole. I’m Cole. I shouldn’t leave her on her own…”

Ellen forced herself to speak. Cole would be less than useless to her, if she had to worry about him too. “It’s ok, Cole. You don’t need to stay. Solas said he’d be done by ten. It’s nearly ten now. I’ll phone him.”

Her hands were shaking as she started to press the keys, but she mistyped her password and had to begin again.

“We could go there first,” said Rylen to Leliana. “This guy’s salon. The others are there, aren’t they? Not far.”

“Stick to the plan,” said Leliana, and Ellen shot her a sideways glance. There was a tension there, between the officers, that hadn’t been there before they stopped at her flat. “Take Harding out with you, and you’ll take Mr… Cole to the salon. Church Street, number 11. He said he lived above it. We’ve asked him all we need.”

Ellen finally managed to unlock her phone and call Solas. _09:58._ She pressed the phone to her ear. No-one answered. “He’s not answering,” she said, shaking her head in disbelief. “Why does nobody pick up?”

“Which number are you calling?” asked Leliana. “His mobile’s broken, yes?”

“Oh… yes,” said Ellen, feeling like a fool. She closed the phone, put it away in her bag, and was surprised to find the car stopping abruptly at a tall, modern building – nineties, maybe. It must be the police station.

Doors and corridors later, she was sitting in a small, chilly room, with _Interview Room_ on the door. It smelled of bleach and cigarette smoke, and something else she couldn’t put a name to. A uniformed officer towered just inside the room, a tall woman with brown hair wreathed in plaits under her cap. Leliana had brought her in here, then left her with this woman. A younger officer – short, with red hair tied back, and a worried frown – entered, dumping three bottles of water and some plastic cups in the middle of the table. Then she left in a hurry.

“Have a drink if you need one,” said the officer who remained. “They’ll be here shortly.”

After ten long minutes, just as Ellen was trying to swallow down more water, heavy footsteps sounded down the corridor, and the door flew open. Cassandra Pentaghast strode in, and slammed something down on the table.

Her voice was cold, and she didn’t trouble to take the seat opposite Ellen. “Explain… this,” she commanded, breathing as harshly as if she’d just run a marathon. Behind her, Leliana arrived, and quietly closed the door.

Ellen put – almost dropped – her water back on the table, and focused on what was in front of her. An image.

An image of Solas, younger, with long hair in a ponytail, his arm around Robert. Both laughing at some joke. Behind them, the unmistakable mouth of the Cueva del Guácharo in Venezuela, green and verdant.

“I… can’t”, she said. “I don’t understand! How could he have known him? Where did you get this?”

“We’re the ones asking the questions,” said the Detective Chief Inspector, still leaning heavily across the table. Sweat gleamed on her brow, and dust and smoke – presumably from the site of the hospital. Ellen winced.

“Her daughter is missing,” said Leliana Nightingale, an arm on her superior’s elbow. “We need her, Cassandra. We ought to follow procedure and tape this. There is no reason to doubt her fear is genuine. Is there?”

Cassandra Pentaghast grimaced, and sat down with a painful scrape of the wooden chair across the lino flooring. Ellen shook her head and put a hand to her forehead. Leliana Nightingale switched on the recording machine and gave the details of the people in the room, the date and time. The uniformed officer stood silently and still.

“Miss Lavellan, you have come here voluntarily,” continued Leliana. “You are not under arrest. You do not have to say anything. But, as you are aware, we are currently seeking the man in this photo we have shown you: your ex-fiancé, known to you as Robert Corey. If we were to arrest you on any matters relating to his actions, it might harm your defence if you did not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court.”

“Anything you do say may be given in evidence,” interrupted Cassandra Pentaghast, at double-speed, clearly frustrated with the speed at which her colleague was talking. “Miss Lavellan, you are aware of the device that was exploded at the hospital. Do you have any information about this, or about any other related devices?”

“No!” said Ellen, shaking her head violently. “I know nothing about any of this! I want to know where Ana is!”

“You may know more than you think,” said the red-haired Detective Inspector, pursing her lips. “If you want us to find Ana quickly, you need to work with us. When was the last time you saw Robert Corey before last night?”

For all the woman was less harsh than the blunt DCI Pentaghast, she was no less determined, Ellen saw. A vague notion of asking for a phone call crossed her mind… but she didn’t trust solicitors, and all her friends were out of reach: Merrill, Lanaya… and Solas. Would the university help her? She imagined her supervisor Professor Pavus sweeping in, brilliant in academic robes… but this was not the place for an exiled Iranian prince, now was it?

Dragging her eyes away again from the image of Solas and Robert, and up to see the tiredness of the dark-haired woman opposite, thrust behind her grim and merciless focus, Ellen shivered. Then she remembered the broadcast she’d seen of the people at the hospital, the kindness of Leliana on the way, and took a deep breath.

“If I can, I will help,” she said, in as calm a voice as she could manage, her hands twisting together.

Cassandra looked approving, and relieved. “Thank you. If we can find your daughter and friends, we will.”

They began the round of questioning again, and Ellen tried her best to answer as completely and succinctly as she could. She wanted to ask if they had questioned Solas – they could hardly arrest him on the strength of this photo, but perhaps they knew more – but caution forestalled her. Also, the less they focused on him, or Cole, the better, she presumed. But eventually, as she’d guessed they would, the questions worked around to him.

_Is Solas Harrell your boyfriend? When did you first meet him? Has he ever talked of Venezuela? Has he ever spoken of Robert Corey? What are his interests? Has he ever lied to you?_

_Yes. Last November. He said he lived there when he was a child, he went back last year, and maybe other times… I don’t know when, or how often. His mother was Venezuelan. She was killed in 1999. His brother, Evan Uris, was killed last August, a bomb under his car. He thought that Robert Corey – El Antiguo, Roberto Corypheoso – was to blame. He wanted to fix it, I don’t know how. He’s interested in classical music. Literature. The environment._

_Yes, he lied to me…_

Explaining how he had lied, and why, felt like another terrible betrayal of a man who’d loved her, but she clung to the hope that telling the truth would help keep Ana safe. Thankfully, they never asked about Cole.

After an hour, or maybe longer, Leliana sat back, her hands steepled behind her head. “Thank you for all that,” she said, with a sharp nod. “Now, the final thing. The DVD we found at your flat.”

Ellen’s blood ran cold. The thought of intruders in her flat… she’d pushed it out of her mind to help her cope!

“Shit,” she said, then blushed, with a worried glance at the recording machine. “Sorry. I shouldn’t swear. I’d almost forgotten about that. What was on it? What can you tell me about it?”

Leliana brought a laptop – her own laptop! – out of her briefcase, and snapped open the lid. “Rylen didn’t see this. DCI Pentaghast and I have watched this already. I would have put it in one of our laptops, but we’re short of time. From what we can tell, it seems to be of you and Robert Corey, in your bedroom…”

“Having sex,” supplied Cassandra Pentaghast. Ellen put a hand to her mouth, biting hard on her knuckle.

“Yes,” said her colleague, wincing. “Ellen, were you aware of any sexually explicit videos Robert took of you?”

“No!” said Ellen, almost shouting the word. “That bastard! How could he… how did he… can I see it?!”

There was silence, then Leliana shrugged and turned the laptop around, so only she could see. It was paused on an image of Ellen’s bedroom, empty, as it would have been set out seven years ago, when she and Robert were together. “It looks like it is taken from up high, somewhere in one of the old plaster mouldings on the ceiling.”

Cassandra Pentaghast made a note. “We’ll look into that, see if there’s any evidence still there.”

Leliana Nightingale turned to Ellen. “It’s four minutes long. In the normal course of things, there’s another team that specialises in this kind of thing, but because of the part at the end, we’ll lead and they’ll join in as needed.”

“What’s at the end?” said Ellen, her cheeks burning with rage and embarrassment. When she’d read that in books she’d thought it was exaggeration to wish the floor would swallow you, but now she knew it wasn’t.

“Robert,” explained Leliana. “For operational reasons we won’t show you that part. But it was added recently: a threat to broadcast this – and others – virally, making it clear that it’s you in the video. Blackmail, essentially. The video’s not so bad in itself, as these things go, so it would likely not get much notice… except for your job.”

“Doesn’t blackmail mean he’s trying to force me to do something else?”

“He wants you to give him the papers you showed us. Obviously,” she continued, as Ellen glared, “we wouldn’t advise you to do that. We don’t know what other videos he might be referring to – do you?”

“No,” said Ellen quietly. “I’m… not sure I want to see this one.” Then she changed her mind. “No, wait. I do. The reality can’t be worse than my own imagination, right? Presumably he picked… the worst… best… for this.”

Leliana nodded, her face masked in a blank professionalism again. “It’s your decision.”

Ellen sighed. “I want to see it.” She took the headphones held out and put them over her ears, thankful for that gesture to privacy, as Leliana manipulated the worn trackpad to get the cursor over the small arrow and make the video play. Then… she watched herself and Robert, hiding her face in her hands as much as she could.

It was… horrifying, and sickening, a deception all the worse for being long ago – and edited, a compilation for the net, different dates. Terrible to see that naïve nineteen/twenty year old, long hair splayed across the pillow, or hanging down her back, her whole body on display, visible in ecstasy as the traitor licked and… penetrated her, the smooth skin of her forearms and thighs and ankles, the awful, adoring, sounds she’d made – the lying words of love he’d spoken. Such innocent depravity – and had those hidden cameras been on for years?!

When Leliana finally stopped it, Ellen couldn’t find a word to speak. No wonder Robert had liked the light on.

“I’m sorry, Miss Lavellan,” said Leliana gently. “You can talk with us later about pressing charges if you wish.”

Cassandra Pentaghast looked exhausted, but as if the rage were now on Ellen’s behalf, not at her. “Sergeant Brassard will take you away. She’ll show you where you’re staying, with a protection detail for your own safety.”

“You’ll be free to go about your business, but don’t leave the city,” added Leliana. “We might need you quickly, for example if we located Ana. Say what you want retrieved from your flat. She doesn’t have a car, Brassard.”

Ellen let herself be ushered from the room, and it was only an hour later, when she closed the door and stared around an entirely anonymous room, that she collapsed upon the bland white quilt and curled up in a ball.

  



	12. Cold front

Ellen frowned down at her notebook. She would make a list, as comprehensive and neat as her memory and shaking hands could make it. This was how she’d coped with everything since Robert. This was what she’d do.

The room came with a kitchenette, with basic stocks of tea and coffee, long-life milk and sugar, plain biscuits and cereal, tins of soup and baked beans. So, as she would have done at uni, she’d got herself a cup of tea, put a couple of biscuits on a plate for when she felt able… and started to make a list.

The counsellor had told her she was practical, and organized, and smart – and that she’d need to use all those skills when she was a parent. A single, student parent: but the labels didn’t have to mean it was wrong.

 **Actions,** she wrote, then changed the title: **List of Actions**.

They didn’t have to be in order yet. _Work out how to shop for food here. Help the police find Ana. Make a list of facts._ _Decide what to tell the studio. Make an appointment with the counsellor at uni. Make a list of things that the police should bring me from flat (clothes, more food, paracetamol, valuables?). Watch TV for news?_

It was absolutely not her fault, she told herself, as numbness smouldered into white-hot anger, that Robert had climbed into her flat through a window, that he and Solas had fought there. What was her fault was letting herself be swayed by someone plausible: first the one of them, and then the other. She wanted nothing more to do with either of them. Confessions of love and desperate kisses were stupid. Damn mysterious angels.

It was not her fault that Ana was missing, or Niamh, or Merrill, or Lanaya. It was like that story Professor Pavus told her, the day she’d finally explained to him why she was always short of money. _A traveller goes through a village, on his way to a temple in the desert. No-one in the village – the merchant, the baker or the fisherman – tells him a suspected murderer is hiding in the temple. When his bloodied body’s found, who’s to blame?_

_The murderer is to blame._

Suppressing the nausea in the pit of her stomach, Ellen turned to a clean page of her notebook.

 **Facts,** she wrote, then changed the title: **List of Facts.**

This one was going to the police, in case any of it were useful. They could keep it safer than she could, for sure. But first, she ought to make a list of things to bring. New page. **List of Items (to bring from flat)**.

_Bathroom: toothbrush, toothpaste, paracetamol (top shelf), make-up bag (black). Hairbrush. Hairdryer._

Damn Solas. Damn. Damn. Damn.

****

“You’ve saved me a lot of time,” said the sergeant, looking over the lists Ellen had given her. She’d come back precisely at the time she’d said she would: quarter to twelve. “I’m sure they’ll call you as soon as anything develops.”

She’d made a list of questions in her head. “Did they trace the numbers I gave them? Lanaya’s, Merrill’s, …”

Sergeant Brassard looked down at her, in sympathetic frustration. “They’re doing everything they can.”

“It would help me to know what’s going on,” said Ellen quietly. She’d made a second cup of tea, and was sitting on the cushioned chair by the desk. They weren’t in a hotel, but the room had that air: impersonal, temporary.

Too quiet, and the tea was scalding. Normally she was lucky if she drank it anywhere near hot, since Ana…

The brave façade nearly cracked, as she thought of her daughter… and that video.

“I’m not allowed to tell you operational details,” said the policewoman, pursing her lips. “But if you were to guess that they’d be checking any communications channel they can access, you are unlikely to be wrong.”

“How likely is Ana to be safe, Sergeant Brassard, if they haven’t found her yet? Assuming this is an abduction – of them all? Solas said he thought they were well-organised, from what he’d learnt in Venezuela.”

“While I’m in the car going to your flat, I’ll ask DI Nightingale if she can call you with an update. Best to ask her.” The sergeant’s voice was polite but firm. Then she glanced at the mobile on the desk. “No-one’s contacted you?”

Ellen shook her head, and gripped the tea more tightly in her lap.

“You didn’t try to contact your boyfriend?” asked Sergeant Brassard, her tone edged with scepticism.

“His mobile’s broken. They seemed to think the phones at the salon were bugged.” _Phone me if you must,_ he’d said, _but be aware that others may be listening in._ “I thought it would be safer not to get in touch.”

The policewoman nodded, but made no further comment about it. When she left a few minutes later, the room felt even more empty than before. Ellen knew she ought to eat, and found herself standing in the kitchenette, staring at the tins of soup. Before she could decide which flavour – tomato, country vegetable, or chicken and vegetable – she could manage best, she heard her mobile buzz. A text alert!

Rushing back into the main room, she grabbed the phone, unlocked it and clicked on the Messages icon.

**_12:01. Unknown._ ** _Ellen, this is Solas. I am sorry. I distracted you from your duty to Ana. It will never happen again. It was selfish of me. You deserve better._

Stunned and furious, she glared at the phone. Several times in the last few hours she’d told herself she ought to break up with him, break off whatever it was they had, that she ought to have been with Ana, not with him.

To find that he agreed – and that he’d break up with her now, of all times – it… he… was impossible. Arrogant. Tactless. Selfish, yes! It ought to be her choice, not his, to make that call!

Ellen found herself remembering the kiss that morning, his efforts to secure her paperwork, the pain in his eyes when he spoke of Venezuela, his mother and brother. All his kindness, and his efforts, there to keep her safe. He clearly wasn’t on Robert Corey’s side, whatever the photograph meant, she knew that.

But he’d lied, and yes, she should have stayed at home last night… but then, it would be her abducted, and would that be any better? What kind of man breaks up with his girlfriend when her daughter’s gone missing?

Thoughts were going nowhere. She needed facts.

Unthinkingly, and with little plan for what she might say first, she dialled the number. The call was refused.

**_12:04._ ** _Solas. Ellen here. What’s going on? Are you breaking up with me?!_

**_12:05. Unknown._ ** _Yes. I am sorry. Please don’t call me._

**_12:05._ ** _Right now? When Ana’s missing?_

There was no immediate response this time, and after a few minutes of staring blindly at the phone, Ellen took it to the kitchen and laid it on the counter while she hunted out a saucepan and a wooden spoon. Grabbing a tin of soup at random, she dumped it in the saucepan, put the pan on the hob, and lit the gas.

Her hands were shaking, yet she knew the first rule of crisis management was that she must look after herself. The counsellor had drummed that into her. Food, money and sleep. If you can get enough of those – I don’t mean enough for luxuries, Ellen, enough to stay alive – then that will help you cope with the rest.

The soup began to warm, and she took the time to record the number he was calling from, and enter it under his name. The number was a mobile one. Had he borrowed it, or did he have another, for emergencies? She would have asked him, but was reluctant to give him any opportunity to answer any question but her last one. As she stirred the soup, its simmering, bubbling heat like anger in a pan, the phone finally chimed again.

_**12:11. Solas - new.** I will help you find her._

**_12:12._ ** _I never thought you would be the kind of man to break up with someone by text. Is this your number now?_

Ellen poured the hot soup into a bowl, as bland and cream as all of the furnishings and fittings in this place, and brought it, a spoon, and her mobile, back to the desk. The List of Actions lay there still, deliberately visible to Sergeant Brassard as if to show in one more way that she had nothing to hide. _Watch TV for news?_

Oh god. The video. Laid bare. And… if he hadn’t broken up with her, would she have had to tell him that?

Well, she wasn’t going to tell him by text, not now, and particularly not if he’d borrowed someone else’s phone… but it did present one positive of his action. She need not feel at all guilty about anything she’d said today. The man had lied to her, had stalked her, had taken advantage of her. She was glad he’d broken it off. She could call him a callous bastard and be done.

_**12:13. Solas - new.** Thank you for saying that. I had no choice. _

**_12:13._ ** _You could have called me. You could have picked up my call!_

_**12:14. Solas – new.** No. I can’t. Don’t try again. _

He was being needlessly cruel, and she could feel the sharpness of her nails, cutting into her palms.

**_12:14._ ** _You never cared about me did you? Tell me you don’t care about me._

_**12:15. Solas – new.** I… can’t. I’m sorry. I have to go. _

Why was he shutting her off then? To keep her safe?

She’d no idea. As she brought the spoon up to her mouth, swallowing each salty mouthful, she felt tears trickle down her cheeks. Angrily brushing them away, she looked around for the TV remote.

****

The news was cycling round again, each hour’s bulletin adding increasingly little to her stock of information. Leliana had called to inform her that there’d been no news, and to say they wanted to go public on the local channel with the disappearance of the children and women. They’d kept it separate from the main item, not wishing to imply there might be any connection with those missing from the hospital, but not denying it either.

Because of that, she’d kept on watching her own studio, Vivienne and Florianne each hour. They disliked each other so intensely that their banter was punctuated, even in front of the cameras, by occasional raisings of an eyebrow or a flicker of the eyes over the dress. Florianne preened herself, and while her weather forecasts were impeccably delivered, she occasionally stumbled over some of the technical words she’d never understood.

Ellen watched it blindly, feeling like she ought to go to sleep but also shouldn’t. _Ana. Ana. Ana._

As distraction, she thought about the studio politics. Vivienne had never twitted her on air, at least, though perhaps the allowance she’d been given for naivety was not the compliment she’d first thought. Florianne outright disliked her too, since she’d been made to cut her days for the studio to save money. Ellen, being able to do both the technical and presenting side, was much cheaper, and would be more so if she’d be willing to go full-time – and perhaps train another presenter up – once she had learned the ropes. That question had not yet been broached to Florianne, but the studio boss Celene had given Ellen enough hints for her to know that she should keep her mouth shut.

It was only around half-past four in the afternoon, when her tears were dried, and half a packet of biscuits had been slowly worked through, several cups of tea, that a knock came on the door. It was Leliana Nightingale.

“Ellen,” she said, not pausing to come in. “Can you get ready to come with us? There’s a lead.”

  



	13. Precipitation

They were travelling in a different vehicle this time, a van with three rows of seats and two child car seats stashed in the boot area. Whether they were deliberately trying to raise her spirits, were confident of success, or were simply required to plan for every eventuality, Ellen didn’t know. All Leliana Nightingale had said was: we think they were taken into Wales; we don’t think they’ve been hurt; we think it’s best if you come with us.

She was clinging blindly to one hope: that at the end of this journey, there’d be Ana to bring home. Safe.

And little Niamh, and Merrill, and Lanaya. Her hands clenched in her lap. Painful guilt to fear that it was her fault they’d been caught up in all of this, especially when they’d had so much to contend with in their own families.

Leliana had asked her to surrender her mobile. Checks done – no reason given, had they thought it could be bugged? – they’d left it on, in case anyone tried to make contact using it. So it was now sitting out of reach, in a soundproofed transparent plastic container in Leliana’s briefcase. Perhaps they wanted to ensure she couldn’t tell anyone else where she was going. Not that she knew. The lack of control frustrated her.

Ellen stared out at the twilit, darkening fields and watched the rain spatter the pane with tears.

“It’ll take another couple of hours,” said Leliana, sitting across from her, behind the driver’s seat.

“Less,” said Chief Inspector Pentaghast. She’d ordered Sergeant Brassard out from behind the steering wheel when he’d driven up the van, stating in a tone that brooked no argument that _she_ would drive.

“Rutherford, Rylen and Harding are coming in a uniform car with Cole,” said the sergeant, looking up from her phone. “They’re about twenty minutes behind us now. So they should overtake us. Rutherford’s driving.”

The Chief Inspector nodded, as if satisfied, and overtook a coach at speed.

Leliana also looked relieved. “Good. Tell him to watch the conditions. Heavy rain later, then freezing fog.”

There was a disgusted snort from the driving seat, making Leliana smile. Ellen found it oddly reassuring. In a battle between the elements and Cassandra Pentaghast, she rather thought the elements might come off worst.

They’d said very little as they negotiated the city roads, but now they were safely on the dual carriageway, speeding westwards through the rain, it seemed a good moment to ask more.

So Ellen took a breath, and asked, more confidently than she felt: “Where are we going? What do you know?”

“Tell her,” ordered the Chief Inspector, her foot on the accelerator as they raced uphill. The rain was getting heavier, just as Florianne had broadcast, and the van’s windscreen wipers were struggling to cope with the spray from the lorries they were passing. “Better if she knows now. And this will brief you too, Brassard.”

Leliana nodded, and turned to Ellen. “We tracked a man matching your description of Mr Harrell.”

“Of Solas?” Ellen frowned. That wasn’t what she’d expected, and the thought that he was further involved sent a cold shiver down her spine. At least she’d managed to scramble into some of her own clothes, a navy blouse and cardigan, and wasn’t in his jumper any more. “Why? Because I told you he’d texted saying he’d help find her?”

“No, because he disappeared,” said Chief Inspector Pentaghast bluntly.

“Disappeared?” echoed Ellen. It felt… inevitable, as if she’d been in this exact situation before. On loop.

“At your interview you mentioned a rucksack, and what Cole had said,” continued the Chief Inspector. They had reached the top of the hill, and she paused to concentrate on the road, overtaking another slow-moving lorry.

Leliana took up the tale, her pale skin gleaming briefly white as the lorry’s headlights lit the van from behind. “We had other information too by then, so we called our colleagues at the salon, to see if he was there…”

“This was at ten past eleven,” said the Chief Inspector to the sergeant, who was making notes.

“… and that was the point they realised he had gone already,” concluded Leliana, with a sigh.

“Apparently,” said her superior, caustically, “he had been extremely helpful to the officers.”

“Yes,” agreed Leliana, “so nobody expected him to vanish. From what we later pieced together, we think he went out the back door, then cycled to the station to board a train. We tracked him via rail to Conwy.”

Conwy was in north Wales somewhere. “Did he have the green rucksack with him?” asked Ellen, imagining the man she’d last seen in his flat that morning. Then she thought about the timeline, and added, with more heat: “And if you knew, why didn’t you tell me he’d gone? Why didn’t you ask me if I knew where he was?”

“Procedure,” said the Chief Inspector curtly, as if she had no right to ask. Ellen felt her hackles rise at the detective’s manner, and tried to remember that Leliana had encouraged her to think of the woman as Cassandra. _We’re on the same side here,_ she thought, _there’s no need to be rude to me._

Leliana ran her fingers through her long red hair, freeing it from where it had got trapped by the camel-coloured scarf she’d wound around her neck. She looked thoughtful. “No, he didn’t have the rucksack. I thought that was slightly strange as well. It’s an odd loose end, but not one we’ve had time to pursue yet.”

Rain was pounding on the ceiling, and causing fountains of water to spray up the sides of the van. Ellen had to raise her voice to be heard. “Couldn’t you have stopped him? Or…” she guessed, “the British Transport Police?”

“It was likely to be more useful to track where he was headed,” said Leliana. “At that stage, anyway.”

“What happened when Mr Harrell reached Conwy?” asked the sergeant from the front.

“We had the Welsh police track him from the station, Evie. He’d taken various trains to get there. It was just after three o’clock when he got there. He got into a car with a woman, and they set off south into Snowdonia.”

“A woman?” echoed Ellen. The rain was easing off, but the taste in her mouth was becoming ever more bitter.

“That’s why it’s best that you know now,” said Leliana, her expression hardening. “Just in case.”

Ellen sighed. “Thank you. But what I didn’t tell you… yet… those texts. He told me he was breaking up with me.”

“Today?” asked the Chief Inspector. “Callous bastard,” she muttered under her breath, unprofessionally but entirely endearingly to Ellen. Perhaps the woman – Cassandra – was simply very… driven. Driving.

There was a silence which Ellen chose to read as sympathetic, and for a moment they were simply four women in a speeding van, hurtling west out of England. She found a tissue in her bag, and surreptitiously wiped her eyes. And blew her nose. And took a long, deep breath, because she needed to stay calm for Ana.

After a decent pause, Leliana hummed. “We still haven’t worked out who the woman was. Slim, pale or light brown skin, dark hair, probably in her thirties. Not your friend Merrill, we ruled that out.”

“Another relationship?” asked Sergeant Brassard, putting into words what Ellen had been avoiding wondering.

“No UK records of marriage,” said Leliana. “But he’s a dual national, so it’s possible he could have married in Venezuela and not told us. It happens. If he’d applied for a CNI we’d have seen it on file. For what it’s worth, what there is on file tallies exactly with the story he told you about his family: father Welsh; mother Venezuelan; one brother, Evan. Strange they took such different paths in life, being twins. You said they didn’t get on?”

“Solas didn’t say he was a twin,” said Ellen. “Is it odd that he didn’t say that?”

“He only told you about his family connection to Venezuela last night,” said Leliana, her soft voice calculating, and Ellen suddenly realised that was true. It felt a lifetime. “The birth dates are the same. It’s all on record.”

“Then I suppose they must be twins,” said Ellen. She blew her nose again, more fiercely this time, more defiantly. What hurt so much was that it all had seemed so right, so recently. Where had he gone – that quiet, ecologically-conscious Welsh hairdresser she’d fallen for? Had he ever truly existed? Had it all been lies?

For a moment the world disintegrated. The van, the seats, the headlamps, the raindrops on the window glass were fake. She was actually dreaming. Dreaming. People disappearing, resurrecting, tessellating, all made sense.

She’d wake up, and her thesis would be written, even that last annoying chapter. This was just a nightmare.

_Ana. I need to focus on finding Ana._

“Were they identical twins, or non-identical?” asked the sergeant. Evie Brassard. She was still taking notes.

“No pictures on file,” said Leliana. “But if you’re thinking that we might have tracked the wrong man, then remember that the twin in Venezuela’s dead. Evan Uris, born Evan Harrell, died six months ago.”

“Only according to what I said Solas said,” said Ellen, shaking her head. “What if he lied to me, or was mistaken? He told me Robert Corey died, but we all saw him. Here, in Britain. What if Evan’s death was faked as well?”

“I suppose… that is not completely impossible,” said the Chief Inspector from the front. “But, where we are going, we have reason to think that Ana and your friends are there. Or were there, at least.”

Ellen forced herself to concentrate as Leliana explained that the Welsh police had followed Solas and his mysterious woman to a narrow driveway leading to a remote farmhouse. At this point they’d had to wait for back-up, but when they’d managed to approach the place, they’d found their car abandoned by a old red van, with a registration plate they could track back to one seen parked within her street that morning.

“It’s not all circumstantial, though…” said Leliana, her gaze drifting out through the front window. Then she shrieked: “Cassandra, look out!”

Red lights flickered startlingly out of the murk in front of them, a driver braking where there had been no lights before. The Chief Inspector slammed on the brakes, sending her passengers pitching forward. Their van wasn’t marked – it was a dark grey colour, not obviously a police van – and so the… Cassandra merely rolled her eyes, let out a loud blast on the horn, and began to overtake the miscreant as soon as she could do so without danger.

“Idiots,” muttered Cassandra. “No wonder this road has so many accidents.”

The car they had nearly crashed into was old and battered, juddering down the road. As they passed, the driver switched on a headlamp, sending a flickering yellow-white beam through the van. Ellen glanced across, then gasped in shock. “Look!” she yelled, grabbing Leliana’s arm and gesticulating wildly towards the windows.

“What is it?” asked Leliana.

“It was Solas in the front seat of that car!”

“Are you sure?” asked Cassandra. She had been going to overtake another lorry in front, but instead moved back into the left-hand lane, slowing down enough that the old car behind them began gradually to gain again.

“Yes!” said Ellen, twisting around in her seat to try to crane her neck as far back as it would go. “I’m sure it was him. The driver had dark hair, I didn’t recognise him. I think there was someone else in there as well?”

“Call Rutherford,” ordered the Chief Inspector. “Get him to pull them in for the lights infringement.”

“Wouldn’t it be better to see where he’s going?” asked Leliana. “His texts to Ellen says he was helping find Ana too. If we pull him in then…” She trailed off, and Ellen frowned in puzzlement. What was she missing here?

“No,” insisted Cassandra. She glared at her colleague in the mirror. “Rutherford hasn’t seen the files. He only has to pull the driver in. Once he does, then _we_ can talk to Mr Harrell. Brassard, stay with Miss Lavellan in the car.”

  



	14. Deluge

“The rain’s coming down in sheets, Cassandra!” yelled Leliana, as the Detective Chief Inspector parked smartly in the layby Rutherford had been told to aim for, and glared out at the storm. “We can’t interview him out there!”

A sharp nod was the answer. “Rutherford will have to sit with him in here. Brassard, tell him; you’ll drive. Get Miss Lavellan in the front and give her your uniform cap. If she doesn’t turn around, he might not see her.”

Leliana looked relieved. She opened the side door of the van, and motioned to Ellen to get out. Her heart racing, Ellen obeyed, stepping down on to the flooded tarmac and quickly climbing, back into the left front passenger seat, beside Sergeant Brassard, who was texting rapidly. She dropped her handbag between her feet, pushed back her newly damp hair and pressed the woman’s cap on to her head with shaking hands, chilled by the cold outside. The seat’s back was high, and she was short: the subterfuge might work. All she had to do was listen.

“Miss Lavellan,” said the Chief Inspector, her brows drawn low in a threatening scowl: “don’t speak while we are interviewing Mr Harrell. We will get more from him if he doesn’t know for certain where you are.”

“It’s in yours and your daughter’s interest,” added Leliana Nightingale, leaning forward.

Ellen winced. Only that morning, she’d been tempted to withhold information from these officers, in order to protect her boyfriend and his strange assistant. Now they were asking her to lie to him, and all in the name of finding Ana. _Fine_ , but if she was here to contribute… “What if there’s something critical I need to tell you?”

The Chief Inspector sighed, and became Cassandra again in Ellen’s eyes: vulnerable in the face of uncertain, ambiguous events. “I suppose we ought to have a plan for that. Brassard, get her a blank notebook.”

As the sergeant stashed her mobile and retrieved an official notebook and pen from the glove compartment, blue lights began to flicker out of the stormy darkness behind them. “Here they come,” called Leliana. “Ready?”

Cassandra scowled, and her fierce mask clanged back down. “If we’re missing something,” she said. “Write it down. Use large letters. Make sure that Brassard can see it. Don’t say anything yourself, let her do the asking.”

The sergeant would be driving, of course – and there wouldn’t much be light in the car to read by. Ellen now hoped that she wouldn’t need to tell them anything at all. “Thank you,” she said, looking up. Too late: the Chief Inspector had already gone, slamming the door shut hard enough to make the van shake. Leliana followed almost immediately, closing the side door with more care, and Evie Brassard shifted across into the driver’s seat.

“How are you holding up?” she asked as she buckled up, her tone more kindly than the detectives’ had been. She looked less severe without her cap on, though her plaited wreath of hair was still reminiscent of a helmet.

Ellen shook her head slightly. “I don’t think I am. Do they really know that Ana and my friends are in Wales?”

“I doubt the Chief Inspector would bring you out here if she wasn’t reasonably sure of it, and of getting them safe home,” said the officer briskly. “I’ve worked with her for many years, and Inspector Nightingale since she began this secondment a year ago.Their methods are… unorthodox at times, but they certainly get results.”

“That’s good to hear,” said Ellen. Her voice had trembled slightly, and she gripped the notebook tighter, tried to breathe more deeply. “I keep wondering if there’s anything I haven’t told you, some small clue that would help.”

“Well, if there is, just write it down.”

A minute passed in silence, the driving rain the only sound. Without the wipers to clear it, the front windscreen was awash with water. It was on the verge of sleet, thought Ellen dully, hoping that wherever Ana was, she was at least inside, and wrapped up warmly. “Did you work out what she might be wearing?” she asked. “Ana.”

Brassard frowned in concentration. “I checked the flat against the list you gave me. Her purple coat was missing, and her wellies with balloons on. The other little girl – Niamh – her coat and shoes were gone as well.”

“I hope that they’re not out in this,” said Ellen. “I can’t think why they would have been taken to Wales.”

Car doors slammed behind them, making her jump in her seat. Their world lit up pale blue: as bright as studio lights; as eerie as the thought that a dead man – Robert – had been filming her unseen, perhaps for years. The sergeant glanced over her shoulder, while Ellen stared determinedly at the water running down the glass in front. “They’re coming. You said Mr Harrell’s father was from Wales. Might that be the connection?”

Ellen had no idea, and shrugged. Scarcely a few seconds later the side door of the van slid back, letting in a blast of cold moist air. She froze motionless in her seat, fighting her instincts to turn around and see for herself who had got in, and who was sitting where. Gradually she let her breath out, as quietly as she could. They’d have checked him for carrying anything unsuitable, the only thing he could hurt her with was words.

“Thank you for coming with us, Mr Harrell,” said the Chief Inspector, the edge of sarcasm audible in her tone.

There was no answer, so Ellen had to imagine what his expression might have been. Anger? Exhaustion? Relief?

Another deep male voice spoke. “My colleagues will stay with your companions, Mr Harrell, and ensure they have a means to get to a suitable destination, in a vehicle that complies with the requirements of the law.”

That must be Rutherford, thought Ellen, remembering the tall blond officer who had looked at Merrill’s phone last night. Rylen had a Scottish accent. This man’s voice was English, cultured and confident.

Yet he was a sergeant too, and it was Cassandra who was in charge, and who commanded Brassard, from right behind Ellen’s seat, to start the van and drive on while they asked their questions.

“Where were you driving to?” she asked, first. Presumably Leliana was recording this somehow… or maybe not.

“To Rhys’ place, in Wales,” came the stiff response from the back row of the van. Ellen’s fists clenched.

He hadn’t even had the courtesy to dump her in a call, with his own voice… let alone in person.

“Rhys was the man driving?”

“Yes,” said Solas. “Rhys Gwyn. The officer here saw his driving licence, if you wish independent corroboration.”

“And why were you going there?” asked Leliana. For all her voice was softer than Cassandra’s, it still carried above the noise of the vehicle, and had a sharper edge, more barbed than when she’d spoken with Ellen earlier.

There was a pause, then Solas sighed. “Cole wanted me to come with him. You saw how scared he was of you.”

“We’re in the middle of a potential hostage situation, part of a wider counter-terrorism operation,” snapped the Chief Inspector. “We’re not interested in migration risks right now. Was that the only reason that you left?”

The pause was even longer this time, while Ellen held her breath again. “No. I had heard from a contact my brother was alive, in Wales. I thought… that if I could find him, maybe it would help find Ellen’s daughter.”

“What would your brother have to do with Ellen’s daughter?” asked Cassandra, when it became clear that Solas was not going to expand on his comment further unless he was forced to.

“Perhaps… nothing,” said Solas. He sounded strange – tired and strained, as if he felt intimidated. The Solas she knew – or thought she’d known – was far more confident than that. “Did Ellen tell you about my brother?”

“We’re asking the questions here,” said Cassandra. “Did you believe your brother to be dead?”

Solas’ voice was low, hard to hear. “The inquest concluded he was. We organised and held the funeral. But when Robert Corey turned up alive, I began to doubt again. And then this morning, my contact…”

“You’d better tell us everything,” said Cassandra, a clear warning in her voice. “Who is your contact?”

“My apologies,” said Solas smoothly. “Her name is Sofia Sabio. She worked with my brother in Venezuela.”

Ellen tried out the name: _Sofia Sabio._ Could she be the woman that Solas… no, wait, _Evan_ … had met this afternoon at the station in Wales? But she was in Venezuela, surely, unless she wasn’t. The police thought they’d tracked Solas to Wales, but they must have tracked his twin instead. Unless he’d doubled back? Or… a shiver crept down her spine as the thought crossed her mind that maybe it was _Evan_ in the car with them.

“Could you describe her for us?” said Leliana.

“Oh… I don’t think that I ever met her. We only spoke on the phone, or by email. Her Spanish was fluent.”

Or maybe neither of them were real, and all the Harrells were a figment of her exhausted imagination.

“What is her email address, then?”

Images drifted in and out of the van: a needle delicately sewing stitches into a man’s bare shoulder; herself on a familiar bed, with pale brown skin exposed; a car exploding; a hospital wing; missed calls; screams, sighs, silence. 

“I’m sorry, I can’t remember.”

Ellen felt her eyes closing, and she gripped the notebook tighter to prevent it sliding from her grasp.

“You don’t have it on your mobile?”

“If you remember,” said Solas’ voice, the Welsh lilt more pronounced as he grew angrier, “I told you my phone got broke when I fell from Ellen’s window.”

“So how did your contact Sofia get in touch with you?”

Leliana’s tone was coaxing rather than triumphant, softening until Ellen could barely hear it above the noise of the rain and the engine. She blinked her eyes open, trying to find purchase in the rhythmic, sweeping movements of the windscreen wipers. Brassard was driving almost as fast as the Chief Inspector, and the van was entirely in shadow now, the darkness overcoming her. She needed sleep, but she had to stay awake for Ana.

Solas sighed. “She called the salon phone, left a message on my voicemail. She must have called while I was calling you the first time. She told me to come to Wales, to the house I’d grown up in with my father.”

“And you haven’t spoken to her again since then?”

“She left a number to call. I have it here…” There was a pause, a grunt, and then a sharp exclamation, as if the movement had been agony to his shoulder wound. “Sorry. My shoulder still pains me. Here you are.”

“But you haven’t actually called her?”

“What would I have called her with?”

He’d sounded genuinely puzzled, and weary, and Ellen felt her treacherous heart reach out in deluded sympathy, her ability to reason fading as she struggled to concentrate on events.

“You might have borrowed a phone,” said Rutherford, speaking for the first time in a while, his deep burr soporific. “From your friend Rhys, for example.”

Solas chuckled, but the sound had little mirth in it. “Rhys doesn’t believe in mobile telephones. Or computers. Or any technology really except that ancient car. He only maintains that because it was a gift from my father, and he thinks it shouldn’t go to waste. Cole had a phone, once, but he gave it away. He didn’t like the beeping.”

“So you didn’t call, or text, anyone after half-past eleven today?” asked Leliana. “Such as… Miss Lavellan?”

Ellen jolted fully awake at the sound of her name, and the notebook she’d been holding fell to the floor with a crash. As she scrabbled for it, and then for the cap which rapidly followed it, she heard Solas swear behind her.

Suddenly, loudly and fluently, in Welsh. She didn’t know the words, but the sense was clear enough: _you idiots._

“You brought Ellen here with you?! And tried to keep it from me….” Solas made a growling noise, deep in his throat. His voice throbbed with suppressed fury, each word enunciated clearly and distinctly, like a threat. “Chief Inspector, are you insane? I cannot believe you could even conceive that was a good idea.”

  



	15. Freezing fog

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did remove the "fluff" tag...

After his initial outburst, Solas had refused to say anything more to the police, ignoring both Chief Inspector Pentaghast’s sarcasm and Inspector Nightingale’s arguments that it would be in his interests to cooperate.

Ellen had cowered in her seat, confused, and fearful she had harmed their chances of finding Ana and the others. Too exhausted and afraid to be angry, she stared out of the front window of the van. First rain, then sleet, and then the ice-cold fog that obscured all but the road directly ahead. There seemed to be developments in Wales, for the police had stopped attempting to persuade Solas to talk, and instead were holding coded mobile conversations with the other car, the details all on screens she couldn’t read. Someone was typing on a laptop. Brassard drove steadily on, slowing as the visibility lessened, concentrating entirely on the road.

At some point Ellen noticed they’d turned off the main dual carriageway, up into the hills and creeping through the fog. The darkness was complete, and she had to remind herself it was still only early in the evening.

The van drove on, up and down and around the winding roads. She focused on breathing calmly, counting under her breath, and not on feeling sick or wondering what was going on. Some time later, she heard Cassandra swear under her breath – _Thank God! –_ and for the first time she dared to turn and look back into the van.

Solas was in the far right back seat behind the bulk of Sergeant Rutherford, staring out of the window beside him, his expression lost in the dark. Leliana was at the back left, leaning round Cassandra in front of her, who was showing her a message on a screen. She saw Ellen glancing back and tapped on Cassandra’s shoulder.

The Chief Inspector leaned forward, and whispered into Ellen’s ear: “We believe your daughter may be safe now, and with our colleagues in the Welsh constabulary. We’ll be there soon to see for ourselves.”

Ellen sagged with relief, and stared into the drifting fog with renewed hope. Sure enough, soon blue lights gleamed out of the fog, and Evie Brassard brought the van to a smooth stop beside a Welsh police car. In front was a large white house, two floors high. Light shone out of an upper window; the ground floor was in darkness.

“Stay in the car, all of you, while I find out what’s going on,” commanded the Chief Inspector.

As the tall detective jumped out into the cold evening and slammed the door, the farmhouse door opened in front of them, and Ellen watched a fair-haired, scowling woman in a brown jacket being led out by a pair of tall uniformed officers, and then, to her delight, a clutch of familiar faces – Merrill and Lanaya, with red blankets wrapped around them, and then Niamh, similarly cloaked, carried by a female officer, and finally her own Ana.

Her hands went to her face, her heart rate tripling, her head suddenly pulsing in thunderous agony, and for a few long moments the relief was so great she couldn’t move or speak. All she could see was Ana, safe.

“I want to go to them,” she said, her voice breaking as she held back sobs. She unbuckled her seat belt, her hand reaching out for the van door. Cassandra was talking to them all. They didn’t look hurt, but she had to see…

“Wait,” said Leliana warningly, from just behind her, a gentle hand on her shoulder startling Ellen. When had the Inspector shifted forward? “The cars aren’t big enough to take them all. We’ll want them in here, Rutherford.”

Rutherford appeared to agree with her assessment. “Come with me, Mr Harrell, please,” he said, and led the man out of the side door of the van, to stand with him in front of it.

For a brief few seconds they blocked Ellen’s view of Ana, and she stared at the back of Solas’ head, noting in a detached way that he’d kept his wig on. He stood with his gloved hands interlinked behind him, a posture she knew well. Then he gave a little roll of his shoulders, as if preparing himself to face… something. Ellen frowned.

There was something here that wasn’t adding up. He looked like Solas, sounded like Solas, spoke Welsh like Solas… and knew what surely only Solas could… so why did she still doubt that it was him? When the door had closed, she turned and called to Leliana. “Inspector Nightingale?”

“Yes, Miss Lavellan?”

Ellen remembered her manners, and swallowed hard, to keep her voice pitched level and quiet. “Thank you for finding Ana and the others so quickly. But… are you sure that that is really Solas there and not his twin?”

Leliana raised a pencilled eyebrow, and followed Ellen’s gaze. Her mouth twisted. “What makes you say that?”

“I’m… not sure. I only saw the wig this morning quickly, but I don’t think it looked quite like that?”

“Mm-hm,” said Leliana. They watched as Rutherford moved the man away, to stand at a corner of the house, on the other side of the nearest police car, somewhat out of earshot, almost hidden by the fog. “Anything else?”

“He said his shoulder pained him, but he doesn’t move as stiffly as he did this morning. You’d almost think he hadn’t been knifed at all.” When no answer came, Ellen sighed. “Maybe it’s just the painkillers kicking in.”

“Or adrenalin,” said Leliana. Then she gripped Ellen’s shoulder again, more tightly this time. “Regardless of the truth, we mustn’t let him know your doubts. No good will come of it either way. Now: here they come!”

She slipped out of the car, and opened the door for Ellen to step out, just in time to reach out her arms and take Ana – scared face, coat and blanket – bodily from the slim Welsh female officer who had carried her across.

“Ana, baby, it’s all right,” she crooned, as the girl buried her face in her shoulder, trembling. “Mummy’s here.”

Leliana ushered her back inside the van, letting her keep Ana on her knees while Lanaya got in as well, and lastly Merrill, carrying Niamh, who seemed to be asleep. They all looked shocked, and numb. Ellen kept stroking Ana’s soft dark hair, hugging her body close to her chest, unable to think of anything but offering comfort.

She was dimly aware that Brassard had got out, and was retrieving the child car seats from the boot; and that Cassandra and Leliana were holding a heated conversation with a tall Welshman who’d been the last to come out of the house. She caught odd words, filtering through the open van doors: gun, Calpernia, mine, Sofia.

Then Cassandra stormed off with the man, into the house.

“What happened?” asked Ellen of Lanaya, who’d sat across from her, where Cassandra had been. Brassard shut the boot, and began to fit a car seat in between them, beside Ellen.

“Go on,” said Leliana to Lanaya, passing her a thermos flask of tea. “Hot tea. Drink that. You’re safe now.”

Lanaya shivered. “We’d just set off to walk to the park. The girls woke up early. They grabbed us off the street and flung us in a van. I tried to call somebody but they snatched my phone and chucked it in a hedge!”

Ellen tightened her arms around her child, as Leliana asked: “Who grabbed you? Are you hurt?”

“No-one actually hurt us… well, maybe bruises, but nothing worse than that.” Lanaya shuddered, as if at the thought of what she’d feared.

“Thank God,” breathed Ellen. Brassard helped Leliana pass another flask of tea to Merrill, and then the two of them maneouvered the other child car seat down the narrow aisle to fix it in where Solas had been sitting.

Lanaya took a swig of tea from the flask’s cap, and nodded. “The woman who drove us here – she had a gun. There were two men with her as well. I don’t know where they’ve gone. The woman downstairs…”

Leliana pointed to where the fair-haired woman was being encouraged into the back of the nearest car. Solas was watching the situation intently, and Ellen had to look away. “Which one was she?” asked the Inspector.

“That one was called Calpernia. The other one… Sophie, I think. Calpernia was with us upstairs. We had to stay inside the room. We read books to the girls. She had a gun. She threatened to use it on us if we ran!”

Ana was worryingly quiet. Ellen looked down at her little girl and said again: “You’re safe now, poppet.”

“The other woman’s name,” persisted Leliana. “Could it have been Sofia? Did she bring anybody with her?”

“I don’t know,” said Lanaya, her breath visible in the frozen air. She turned to her wife. “Do you remember?”

“I think it was Sofia,” said Merrill, from the back. Her eyes were filled with tears, and she was shaking. “There was a car arrived some time in the middle of the afternoon. I think I heard a man’s voice speaking Spanish.”

“Did you recognise the voice?” asked Leliana. She hadn’t entered the van, and stood waiting beside the door.

“He sounded very upset. We never saw him though. I remember the door slammed, and then there was another loud thud, and then some time later we heard the woman shouting again, threatening to blow the house up.”

Ana made a small noise, whimpering, and Ellen rocked her in her arms. The car with Calpernia drove off.

“That was when the police surrounded the house,” added Lanaya, wrapping her hands around her tea to warm them up. “After that man came in through the back window and disarmed Calpernia. Ieuan? Owen?”

“Owen Mahariel,” explained Leliana. “The man who talked with us right now. He’s a plainclothes detective with the Welsh constabulary. He’s gone back into the house with Chief Inspector Pentaghast. So he was upstairs?”

“He kept everybody calm,” said Lanaya. “He took the gun, and put some handcuffs on Calpernia, told her some stuff about how Robert Corey was planning to double-cross them all, that he’d gone back to Venezuela already.”

“He promised she could save herself if she didn’t make things worse. I never saw anyone change their tune so quickly,” said Merrill, with a weak laugh. She’d finished helping Evie Brassard get Niamh into the seat without her waking, and stroked her niece’s hair gently as her head nodded against the headrest. “Not even Varric.”

“We’re safe now,” said Lanaya, smiling back at Merrill. “Ellen, I can’t imagine how worried you must have been.”

Ellen nodded, not trusting herself to talk. Then she looked at Leliana. The Inspector seemed on edge, glancing repeatedly across to where Sergeant Rutherford was still trying to engage Solas – or whoever – in conversation.

She tried to piece the parts together. The man who had arrived, the man with Rutherford, and one of them was probably her Solas, but she didn’t know which one. “What happened to the woman downstairs… Sofia?”

“Cassandra’s gone in after her, with Owen,” said Leliana, as the sergeant indicated that Ellen should place Ana in the seat beside her. She didn’t really want to, but it was the only way to get them away from here. “Brassard…”

“Yes?” said the sergeant, not looking up. Then, as Ellen finished securing Ana’s seatbelt, Leliana grabbed her colleague’s arm, pulled her out of the van, and pointed towards the farmhouse. Out of the door, covered in dust and soot and blood, came the tall man Owen Mahariel, with an unconscious Solas slumped over his shoulder, equally dirtied and bleeding. At the same time, the Solas who stood beside Sergeant Rutherford raced forward, close beside the house – ignoring his comatose, blackened twin completely – and dashed inside the doorway.

Cassandra emerged from the house, presumably not running into Solas – or Evan, or whoever – on the way. And then, as Ellen watched in horror from inside the van, a dark-haired woman stepped out of an upstairs window, balancing precariously on the ledge, and hefted some kind of long-barrelled rifle.

“Get down!” shouted Leliana, pulling Brassard to the ground as well, using the van as shelter. “It’s Sofia!”

Sofia aimed her rifle at Owen Mahariel. “Give him back or I’ll shoot!” she yelled, in a thick accented English.

“No, Sofia, you won’t,” said a familiar voice behind her. He reached out for the gun. “You know it’s over.”

The mad woman froze, fury etched in every feature of her face. With a deafening shriek of rage, she flung the rifle at the ground in front of the house, out of reach of his grasp, heedless of who it might hurt when it landed. Then turning to face the man behind her, she lost her balance and pitched out of the window, screaming. Rutherford ran forward to break her fall, but could not quite get there in time.

And everything went silent.

  



	16. Low pressure

“Have you gone to see him?” asked Wynne. The counsellor’s voice was as calmly neutral as ever.

“Everybody asks me that,” said Ellen, looking away. She stared at the old familiar breeze blocks, now painted creamy white, then glared at Wynne. “Why would I want to go and see him? It’s not as if he can talk!”

Wynne sipped at a glass of water plucked from a small table beside her chair. “You said it had been over two weeks.”

“Yes,” said Ellen. This had been a mistake. She wasn’t ready to talk about the rest of it. It was only Inspector Nightingale’s insistence that had brought her here: either Wynne or some police counsellor she didn’t know.

“How’s Ana doing?” asked Wynne, as the silence stretched out.

This was the first time she had left the flat without her. That was… barely ok, even knowing that they all had panic buttons now. “She and Niamh are fine. The three of us – me, Merrill, Lanaya – are doing shifts. Because I can’t go back into my flat yet, I’m staying in their spare room and Ana is sharing with Niamh. Two of us look after the girls together, while the other one does something on her own. Work. Writing up. Cleaning. Shopping.”

Ana and Niamh weren’t quite fine yet, but compared to how the adults were… they were well enough.

And compared to how Solas was… she herself was fine enough. At least she could talk.

Wynne had listened patiently, but now she glanced down at her file. “The University would probably give you more time for writing up your thesis, if you put in a request. The details could be confidential. Your GP’s note…”

“I’m nearly finished,” interrupted Ellen. “I just want to get it submitted. It takes my mind off things.”

“Very well,” said Wynne, with her usual small smile. “When’s your next doctor’s appointment?”

“Tomorrow. If she says I’m fit to go back to work, I start back on Wednesday. I hope she does.” The thought of being in front of cameras made her feel sick, but the thought of being without a job was worse. At least not many details of her situation had become public knowledge: her colleagues might know that her daughter had been briefly missing around the time of the hospital attack, but quickly traced – but that ought to be it.

Oh – and Vivienne knew that Solas’ salon had been broken into. Did she know about Ellen and him? Maybe not.

“How were you finding it?” asked Wynne, and Ellen knew she must have looked confused, because the counsellor quickly added: “The job at the studio. Palace TV, you said?”

“It’s good to be earning enough money now. Though if I had a better offer, once I’m finished…” Ellen made a face at Wynne, and shrugged. “The people there – well, they aren’t exactly rude to me, but they’ve all known each other for years. Posh… cliquey. Snide jokes about immigrants and those from lower socio-economic backgrounds. Florianne, who does the weather when I’m not there – she’s the cousin of Celene, the studio director. They were at school with Vivienne de Fer, the newsreader. Then there’s the producer, Gaspard…”

She trailed off, thinking about the last time the bully had tried to flirt with her, just before her slot. A month ago, in front of Vivienne – who’d simply laughed, in her tinkly way, implying that it was all part of the game.

Ellen swallowed, shaking her head slightly. How had she never seen how _odd_ it all was? “It took me a while to realise that Gaspard is Florianne’s brother, so he’s Celene’s cousin too. I guess it’s really just a family firm.”

“The Careers office can help you talk about options,” said Wynne. “If you’re intending to submit your thesis soon, you’d have more time – you could take on a full-time job, if you had childcare for Ana for after school.”

“Yes,” said Ellen, thinking of Robert – no, Gaspard – leering. Her voice quavered. “Maybe I’ll do that.”

Wynne sipped her water again. “Is there anything else you want to talk about?”

Ellen glanced up at the clock. Another ten minutes. “We’ve talked about the kidnapping.”

The counsellor frowned slightly. “Do you want to talk any more about why you can’t go back to your flat?”

“Not really,” said Ellen. She sighed down at her feet, the scuffed pink trainers less smart than they ought to be. Maybe this had been necessary, but… “I… know I probably should, but I’m not ready yet, ok?”

“That’s fine,” said Wynne. “Do you have any idea of how long it will be?”

“The police said I should have been able to yesterday, but then they had to delay again.” They’d said that their debugging expert was needed elsewhere. “I couldn’t decide if I felt relieved or not. On the one hand, it’s my flat! I want to have it back again! On the other: Ana loves staying with Niamh, and I… well, I like the company too.”

“Let’s meet next week then,” asked Wynne, and it wasn’t a question. “I can look at when I’m free.” She stood up and walked to her computer, unlocking it and presumably consulting her appointment calendar.

Wynne’s profile was outlined against the grey sky visible through the large, drizzle-spattered window, her white hair drawn back into a tidily practical bun. A pale golden teardrop pendant hung around her neck, over a long red silk tunic. It brought back memories. Ellen remembered that pendant from when Wynne had counselled her through Robert’s death… or _not-death…_ all those years ago. It felt like all the tears she couldn’t cry.

“I can do the same time next week, if that suits you,” she said, turning back to where Ellen still sat.

Her eyes were kind, and Ellen found her anger fading. Her resolve crumbled. “Do you… think I should visit him?”

The older woman remained standing, but leant against the back of the chair, her hands gripping into the soft brown canvas, poised in thought. “You said that the police still weren’t sure if he had sent those texts or not.”

“That’s right. It was Evan in the van with us – the one who tried to take the gun off that woman Sofia, but then escaped through the back of the house after she fell and killed herself, and Solas who’s in hospital. They used the medical records: they don’t think anyone could have recreated Solas’ shoulder wound and stitching exactly.”

“It does seem unlikely,” said Wynne, with a firm nod.

Ellen’s gaze fell to the teardrop, forever weeping. “But they couldn’t tell for sure about the texts. Either Solas did send them, so he had broken up with me… or someone else did, trying to make me think that he had done that.”

“Whether or not he sent the messages, do you want to be in a relationship with him?”

“I… don’t know,” said Ellen. She frowned, conscious that her appointment time was nearly at an end. “I’d want to talk with him, at least. But what if he never wakes up?”

Wynne’s voice was soft. “They do say that the voice of someone familiar can help people in a coma.”  

“It would help me if he could explain why,” said Ellen. Her heart twisted painfully. “I suppose… either way, I do want to talk to him. That’s why it’s so frustrating that he can’t. Lanaya was right: if he’s still unconscious, at least I’ll know I visited… and if he wakes, I might get some closure if we talk. I ought to have gone there sooner, but…”

“Don’t be too hard on yourself,” advised Wynne, as Ellen clenched her fists again, trying to breathe calmly. “Your first responsibilities are still to Ana, and yourself. It’s a complex situation, and it’s good to take time to think.”

“I think I’m scared of going there,” admitted Ellen. “The hospital. What if Evan turns up there? Or Robert?”

“You could talk to the police about the risk, and ask if there’s anyone visiting him that you could go with.”

“I… suppose I could,” said Ellen. “I can’t help feeling it would be easier not to go! But then… I think, what if he _didn’t_ send those texts? There might not be anyone visiting him at all! That’s… a horrible thought.”

****

By the next morning, watching Ana and Niamh crafting happily together, glitter and cotton wool and ribbon all over Lanaya’s dining table, Ellen was feeling even worse about Solas. What if he died, and no-one attended his funeral? What about his salon, what if there were bills that no-one was seeing to? Cole didn’t seem like the most reliable assistant when it came to administration. Maybe he was still in Wales and didn’t know what happened!

And even if he had sent those texts, heading off to where he thought her daughter might be… to rescue her, perhaps not trusting the police for who knew what reason – Cole, perhaps, or the voicemail left by Sofia – well, surely that was good? Someone had tried to hide him in some coal cellar in that house… he wasn’t on Robert Corey’s side, and it wasn’t as if they’d had much time to talk since that bastard turned up from the dead!

Before she could change her mind, she called Evie Brassard. Perhaps the policewoman felt bad about the delay to the work securing her flat – another few days at least – because when she asked if anyone would go with her to see Solas, Evie offered to ask if she could go herself, that afternoon, when she had come off duty. A minute later, she’d confirmed it… and as the call ended, Ellen was left wondering how to occupy herself till then.

She sat down at the table and twisted a piece of bright yellow ribbon round her fingers. _Courage, coward._ On the one hand, Solas seemed to be on her side. On the other hand… he’d lied to her from the beginning.

And, entwined throughout, uncertainty on who had sent the texts. _Schrödinger’s boyfriend: lover, or ex?_

Ana put a hand on top of the ribbon, and rested her head against Ellen’s arm. “Mummy, what’s the matter?”

“I’m thinking about silent cats,” she said, trying to make light of it. The girls hadn’t seen Solas brought out of that house, they didn’t know anything about him being in hospital. Good to keep it simple for them.

“I know a joke about cats!” said Niamh, giggling as she tried to stick a cotton wool ball for a nose on a cardboard face. Ellen smiled wearily: she knew what was coming next. “What’s a cat’s favourite colour?”

Ana scrabbled for a purple ribbon, waving it in the air as the two girls chorused: “Purrrple!”

****

The walls of the hospital weren’t purple, they were a pale green that Ellen knew was meant to be soothing. They were in a wing far away from the one where the attack had been, but the place still carried a strange air of tension… or was she projecting that on to it? She sat on a plastic chair at the side of Solas’ bed, beside off-duty Sergeant Evie Brassard. The tall woman’s calmness was infinitely reassuring in comparison to the clinical smell and the sight of the pale, stiff man in front of her. She tried to remember that Solas might be able to hear her.

“Solas,” she began, in a whisper as if she were afraid of waking him. Then, as nothing happened, she tried to be brave, reached out, and took his hand. It was warmer than she had expected, and softer too. “It’s Ellen.”

Again, nothing happened. “I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner,” she continued, squeezing her fingers around his unresponsive ones. “I was frightened of leaving Ana, and I didn’t want to bring her here. Evie is here too: she’s the police officer that drove us to get Ana back. We wanted to see how you were getting on.”

“Hello,” said Evie. “I’m here to keep you and Ellen company.”

His eyes stayed closed. She’d borrowed a book from the library to read to him, at Lanaya’s suggestion – _Welsh Folk Tales,_ since she’d no idea what he liked in fiction _–_ and let go of his hand to take it out of her bag. The first story was about a man called March ap Meirchion, a king with the ears of a horse. Evie sat listening too. From time to time, Ellen glanced up at the monitors: blood pressure, heart rate, and other numbers she didn’t know.

As she was nearing the end of the story, there was a gentle knock at the door. A nurse came in, with a dark-haired man she vaguely recognised: tall, in a tweed jacket and corduroy trousers, with a neatly cropped beard and moustache. He looked surprised to see them there.

“Two visitors only,” said the nurse, and Ellen closed the book quickly and stood with Evie, obscurely sad that she hadn’t managed to finish the tale. “It’s Mr Gwyn’s time now.”

  



	17. Saturation

The name sounded familiar, but before Ellen could place it, the bearded man – Mr Gwyn – had stepped forward, a furrowed crease between his eyebrows. He carried a bright bunch of yellow daffodils. It seemed incongruous, even rude, to give them as a gift to a man whose eyes were closed, seemingly unreachable by any normal means.

She wanted to leave the room, upset by Solas’ state and desperate to get back to Ana, but Mr Gwyn was in the way.

“Are you one of Solas’ friends?” he asked, in a reedy tenor with a lilting Welsh accent. “I’m Rhys, a family friend. He listed me as next of kin. The hospital contacted me when he came in. No-one else has visited until today.”

Ellen blinked, suddenly recollecting where she’d seen him before: the driver, who’d brought Evan. Had he known that, or had Evan fooled him too? A shiver ran down her spine, and she had to swallow before she could answer.

“I’m Ellen,” she said, looking up into anxious brown eyes. “I’m… one of Solas’ friends. This is my… friend, Evie.”

“A pleasure to meet you,” said Evie Brassard, and was rewarded by a flickering smile, almost shy. The man seemed introverted, intense – as if he’d rarely been in any room with two young – or youngish – women at once. Cole had been singularly self-conscious and impractical as well – what was it about Solas’ friends? Were they all idealists?

Then he looked back at her. “Ellen? Then… you were the one that Cole spoke of, the one that Solas is courting?”

“ _Was_ courting,” corrected Ellen, unable to help herself. The last hour, with Solas abandoned from the world in front of her, it had seemed more and more likely that he’d abandoned her as well.

Rhys looked miserable, and all but reached out to take her hand, then pulled back at the last second. “Don’t give up faith, my dear! The consultant said that comas such as this one tend to last no more than two to four weeks.”

“They think he may wake up soon?” asked Evie. They all glanced across at the bed, as if the closed eyes in that pale freckled face might have opened while they were talking. Nothing had changed. Ellen stifled a sigh.

 _Like bluebells in the spring,_ she thought: _his eyes, that gorgeous blue._

The nurse had gone down the corridor for some purpose, but now he returned, and stood waiting at the door. “Two visitors only,” he said, in a firm tone that jolted Ellen out of painful reverie.

“Please,” said Rhys, as she stepped towards the door. “Miss… Ellen. Keep me and Solas company for a little.”

She shook her head, unable to bear the room a moment longer. “I need to get back to my daughter.”

“I’ll stay,” said Evie, then added, as an afterthought: “If… that’s all right with you, Ellen?”

Ellen nodded, head down, not turning around. She didn’t want them to see the tears that gleamed in her eyes, not even the nurse who followed her up the echoing corridor, murmuring appreciation that she’d visited.

She passed through corridors that stank of cheap air freshener and disinfectant; by waiting rooms where people sat in wheelchairs waiting for appointments and relatives tried not to look anxious; her footsteps hastening as she passed receptions and followed signs and re-direction signs and missed turnings and retraced her steps; and out into the cold March rain; brushed away her tears with an angry hand and blew her nose with a hanky from her pocket; and worked out which of the many bus stops she should wait at; and finally found the right one and…

“Would you like to sit down?”

A young man, dressed in some kind of light-coloured uniform under his coat, sheathing his umbrella, waved towards the remaining orange plastic seat, in between a mother with a toddler on her knee, and a pair of elderly women talking nineteen to the dozen. She shook her head, preferring to remain hidden in the darkest corner of the shelter because even with her cagoule’s hood up some people might still recognise the weather girl. The young man took the seat, stretching out his legs and immediately becoming absorbed in something on his phone.

Ellen blew her nose again, thankful for the rain that thundered on the shelter roof, muffling her quiet sobs.

It didn’t matter if he’d broken up with her or not. It didn’t even matter whether she loved him, or she’d loved what she had thought he’d been... or if he had lied or told the truth. The point was nobody should have to be like that: in a hospital bed, not seeing, feeling… dreaming anything. He ought to have a chance to live!

When the bus came, she sat up on the top deck, huddling in the front seat so that nobody could see her face.

She had handkerchiefs, and some mints at the bottom of her bag, and a little time to breathe.

By the time that she got home, she’d mostly pulled herself together.

****

“So, did you visit him?” asked Wynne, as gently as she could.

Ellen nodded, and burst into tears again. After talking to the counsellor – vetted by the police, she knew – about the hidden cameras and the videos, the lies and terror – she wished for her own self-respect she could say she’d been back more than the once, but it wouldn’t have been true. There had been opportunity – she was signed off work for one more week, though Celene had called her up expressing synthetic condolences and sympathy, and hoping that this would be the last week – and she’d known she ought to go. But she simply couldn’t face it.

His blue eyes haunted her.

****

The next evening, her mobile rang, as she was working in her own bedroom: an unknown number.

“Hello?” she said, trying to keep the tremor out of her voice and hands.

“It’s Evie Brassard here,” said Evie’s steady voice. “I’m off-duty, calling from my personal number. Do you have a few minutes now?”

“Er, yes,” said Ellen, wondering what had happened. She saved her thesis draft – they’d cleaned her laptop too, and returned it, so she didn’t have to borrow Merrill’s – and took the call, keeping her voice low so it wouldn’t be overheard by Ana from her bedroom. She was liable to wander round at nights now they were back here, looking for her mummy. Most nights she’d given up and snuggled Ana in with her, cramped in the single bed.

“I thought that you might like to know that I’ve gone and visited Solas a few more times this week. No change.”

Ellen’s heart sank, and yet it was good of Evie to have got in touch. They’d formed a bond, even through these brief interactions recently. “Thanks for letting me know,” she said, and meant it. “You don’t have to do that.”

“I know.” Evie’s voice sounded strange, as if she were… embarrassed? “I… felt sorry for Rhys. He was staying in this back road B&B, a terrible place. I suggested that he stay with me, at least for this fortnight. He’s got to get back to the farm after that. You realise that the farmhouse that we went to was his? He’d been at some agricultural convention. Apparently he’s been going to it each year for decades. That’s why they knew the place was empty.”

“Are you telling me this as a police officer, or as a friend?”

“Both,” said Evie with a sigh. “It’s all been cleared with DCI Pentaghast. Was cleared with her, before I offered. We know that Rhys had nothing at all to do with what was going on. Is going on. I can tell you that. He leases the farm from Mr Harrell… well… no, never mind. It’s complicated. The key part is he isn’t involved.”

She seemed for whatever reason to be keen to stress the point, which Ellen found bewildering. “Okay,” she said, getting up from her desk and perching on the bed. “So have you been visiting Solas with Mr Gwyn? With… Rhys?”

“Yes,” said Evie. “We read to him, talk about the weather, flowers, farming, the city, anything we can think of.”

“That’s nice,” said Ellen, thinking it must be anything but. Then a thought struck her. “Have you tried music?”

“Music?”

“You’ve got a smartphone, you could play something from YouTube.”

Evie sounded interested. “No, we didn’t think of that. Do you know what music he likes?”

“We used to go to concerts together,” said Ellen, forcing herself to keep her voice steady. “I remember he said he liked Shostakovich, Debussy and… who was it? Stravinsky?”

“Thanks,” said Evie. “If you want to me to pick you up again, we’re planning to go tomorrow, then again on Friday. I know that you felt uncomfortable going to the hospital on your own last week, and leaving Ana.”

Ellen took a deep breath. Lanaya had Ana tomorrow afternoon. “I could… manage tomorrow. I ought to.”

“It’s ok if you don’t want to,” said Evie, her voice softening. “It’s not… the most pleasant of situations.”

Everyone was so damned sympathetic. “I’ll come,” said Ellen rapidly, because she could hear Ana’s bedroom door opening, which meant she had about five seconds left. “Evie, I’d better go. My daughter Ana’s woken up.”

****

Evie was waiting on a chair outside, while Ellen fiddled on her mobile, waiting the inevitable five seconds for the advert to be skippable. That it was an ad for a pregnancy testing kit was just her luck. She avoided Rhys’ gaze, and placed the mobile on the floor, out of sight of the door in case the nurse came past. You weren’t meant to use mobiles in here, so the signs said, but they didn’t make you switch them into airplane mode so that must mean that it was about avoiding noise for other patients, not because they’d interfere with systems.

She peered down at the screen. There was a lot of clapping in the video, as the conductor strode towards the stage. It sounded like rain on the top of a van, or a bus shelter, and she forced herself to think of those associations, not of gunshots, nor of bathing in a shower frightened that they’d missed a camera.

Then the music began. Strings, a forceful beat; the minor key.

Ellen closed her eyes, and then opened them again, to reach for Solas’ hand. He’d been like this for three weeks.

She entwined her fingers round his cool ones, her head drooping over the bed. Two months ago, before she’d ever feared that videos of her might exist for blackmail purposes, before he’d been… unreachable…

Two months ago – no, exactly seven weeks ago, a Wednesday – they’d been at that Ravel concert.

The strings. The cello’s pizzicato. Solas brushing his hand against hers, interlocking fingers. Warm, and firm.

She held his hand and willed herself not to cry. “I’m here,” she said, for the first time, and almost to herself.

Rhys had leaned back in his chair, eyes closed, looking exhausted. On the journey he’d told her he thought the music was a good idea – that Solas had been solitary as a teenager, but liked to listen to classical LPs. Whether they had been LPs, or vinyl, cassette or CD-ROM, Ellen didn’t trouble to find out. She clung to his assurances.

A clarinet took up the tune. Her hope rose and fell with each winding melody, through horns and harp and interminable strings. It made sense that the man would like the counter-music of the Russian revolutions, chiming with his own personal zeals for freedoms large and small – artistic expression, anti-capitalism, life.

Then Ellen sat up with a shock. Why had Cole not visited? “Mr Gwyn,” she said, urgently. “Where is Cole?”

“He’s gone back to Venezuela,” said Rhys, opening eyes as brown as Solas’ eyes were blue in Ellen’s memory, and shaking his head in obvious frustration at the memory. “Did they not tell you?”

A haunting flute marked perplexed silence. Then, sudden as death, Ellen felt a cold hand gripping her own.

  



	18. Hazy

It had taken Solas a long, long time to wake and respond to stimuli, and Ellen had been back at work for weeks before he was able to hold even a halting conversation with her, or understand his situation. Smiles were rare.

Mostly he’d been simply… puzzled. Hazy. Drowning in a mind that needed time.

When he’d talked at first, he’d talked in English or Welsh or Spanish, whatever came first to mind, and she’d seek to bring him back to English, knowing that the nurses would prefer it if she grounded him in words that they could understand. The lilting words – _esperanza, breuddwydio, valor, chwedl_ – were croaked from a mouth that needed water – _dŵr, agua –_   and got it, but only if the nurses knew the word.

One nurse had helped him best throughout the darkest days, had learned what _agua_ meant, and _poen,_ and _ofn_. Anders was the only male nurse on the ward, and the one whose shift most regularly matched her visits. He’d been the one who’d first explained to Ellen that Solas would be suffering from PTA. _Post-traumatic amnesia._

It might take months.

The next time she’d visited she’d confessed to Anders, out of Solas’ hearing, that she didn’t know if he had broken up with her or not. He’d confirmed that Solas might not remember sending the texts, even if he _had_ sent them. And when they’d probed, as gently as they could, it seemed that Anders had been right. Solas didn't remember any of that frantic day in February. He didn't remember leaving the hospital in the early hours of the morning. As far as he was concerned, Ellen was his girlfriend. Ana had never been taken. His brother was dead.

****

Early on, she’d talked to the consultant with Rhys and Evie. “What if his brother turns up here?” she asked.

“We wouldn’t let him in this ward,” said Dr Amell soothingly. “You have to be signed in.”

“We’ve already dealt with that,” said Evie. “If anyone arrives to see Solas except for you or me or Rhys, the duty nurse has to let me know immediately – and I will check with Rhys as next of kin if they’re allowed.”

It seemed that Evie wasn’t here entirely as a civilian. Ellen swallowed. “That’s… reassuring.”

“What should we tell him about his brother, or Cole, or that woman Sofia who died?” asked Rhys.

“Has he asked about them?” said Dr Amell.  Her short dark hair caught the light as she leant forward. No-one could remember Solas asking about Evan or Sofia or Cole. “Then if he asks, tell him that Evan may not actually be dead, that he’s missing, and the police are looking for him. A simple truth is best. Is that fine, Sergeant?”

“Yes,” said Evie Brassard. “As far as we’re concerned, he can know anything that Rhys and Ellen know.”

“Good,” said the consultant. “Was he close to the woman you mentioned: Sophie? Sophia?”

“Not as far as we know,” said Evie. She looked at Rhys again, who shrugged, and amended it to: “Perhaps.”

“Then simply say she’s not around, and if he gets concerned about it, we might need to come back to it. My experience suggests that if we let him ask his questions at his own pace, let his memories return themselves, it’s better for everyone. The mind does marvellous things to protect itself. In this case, we might let it.”

And so, Ellen visited, and listened, and read him tales, and tried to keep things simple. She worked, and worked on the final chapter of her thesis, revised the introduction, went to see Wynne once a fortnight. Told Professor Pavus enough that he was sympathetic, yet not so much that she would end up sobbing on his shoulder.

Solas never asked about Sofia, Evan or Robert, though several times she thought he might, when he’d seemed to rouse from thought. Once, he asked why Cole never visited. When told that he’d returned to Venezuela, buying flights with money saved from working in the salon, he’d nodded – slowly, painfully – saying it was for the best.

There had been no news of Evan, or Cole, or Robert Corey. Or, at least, the police hadn’t told her what they knew, if anything. Nobody else had tried to abduct her or Ana or her friends; nobody else had blown up any part of the hospital; and work went on as it always had done. Like Evie, she’d got fond of Rhys, his calm demeanour and quiet wisdom. But he’d had to go back for shearing, and wouldn’t easily find others to pick up the farmwork now that spring brought life and colour to the lands, even as it was bringing life and colour back to Solas.

Evie continued – whether out of kindness or as permitted, unofficial duty – to pick her up after work a couple of days a week while Ana was still with Lanaya. They had keys to his flat and the shuttered salon, and went there weekly to check there were no unpaid bills. Together they sat at Solas’ bedside, waiting for him to wake, or comment.

And slowly – as slowly as the blossom grew on trees outside the window – he was on the mend.

He was on the mend, and as she stared out of her living room window, into the misty May morning, then down to where he’d fallen all those months ago in February, she knew that that meant something to her.

 _He_ meant something to her.

Even if he couldn’t always remember what.

****

June, and finally Josephine Montilyet had news about the piece of land in Venezuela. The last thing Solas remembered now was 3am: picking up the envelope that Cole had taken to his flat: the envelope he’d guessed contained the deeds. The memory had confused him: how could he have ended back in hospital, so soon after he had left it? Ellen had explained the simple truth that they’d agreed: that he’d been kidnapped and his body starved of oxygen. He was safe here. She was fine. The police were handling the matter.

And yesterday she’d had to go, while he was still upset, because she couldn’t be too late for Ana. Her daughter didn’t know that Solas was in hospital. She thought that Mummy worked late, or went shopping.

Today, intent, Ellen surged up the corridor, late because Evie couldn’t pick her up, with only twenty minutes here before she’d have to get the bus back home again for Ana. Heels on the polished lino, echo-clicking round sharp corners, pausing to squeeze the antibac gel on her hands, rub and rub before she got into the ward.

Anders intercepted her, rushing across from his desk. “Ellen,” he said. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“What is it?” she asked. He looked frustrated, paused, and looked down at the floor, then back up at her.

Then he lowered his voice. “They’re planning to send Solas home tomorrow.”

“What?!” Her cry bounced off the plexiglass walls and back into her ears. “He’s not ready!”

Anders winced. He drew her over to the side of the corridor, giving her time to breathe and focus. “Ellen. He can walk unaided now. He can talk, use his hands. He _wants_ to be discharged. He’s been here over three months.”

“He gets confused! He’s got amnesia! There’s an entire day he can’t remember!”

“He’ll have a care worker come in twice a day at first,” said Anders, using the tone she now recognised as _professional calm,_ which really meant he wasn’t calm or happy. “He’s made his mind up, Ellen.”

“He hasn’t earned anything for months! Is that on the NHS? Something you usually do, after people leave?”

“Not in this case,” said the nurse, smoothing his hands down on his clean white tunic. He still seemed agitated. “You’d have to ask him what he’s sorted out.”

Ellen sighed. Solas might be confused, but he could still be stubbornly private. Then she frowned up at Anders, absorbing the worry on his face. She bit her lip. “Should you be telling me any of this? I’m not his next of kin.”

Anders looked surprised. “Actually, you _are_. Solas asked us to change that yesterday.”

“He… asked you to change that… yesterday,” said Ellen, taken aback. “After or before I’d visited?”

“After,” said Anders, after a moment’s thought. “He came to the desk and said that he’d discussed it with you.”

“Well, he didn’t. He must have dreamed he did. Can he just do that?”

Anders nodded, and Ellen rubbed her temples. Not a fight she needed to have, and it likely wasn’t one that she could win. _17:48._ “I’ve got to head home in fifteen minutes. I’d better see him now. Do you think he’s ready?”

“It’s not up to me,” said Anders, with a sigh. “Dr Amell’s signed him fit this morning, ready to discharge him tomorrow. I’m happier now I know that you know… right?”

“Right,” said Ellen, then as the nurse moved back to the desk, followed him. “Anders…” she said, flushing slightly. “I’m sorry for snapping at you. Thank you for telling me. For… all that you’ve done here. For him.”

 “It’s my job,” said Anders almost defensively, but his eyes had softened. “I hope… that he recovers well.”

Ellen smiled for the first time since arriving. She took a breath. “I hope so too.”

Solas’ bed was up at the far end of the ward, for the last fortnight no longer in his private room, but with the familiar turquoise curtains pulled up on the ward side of the bed, open on the window side. They were on the third floor of the block, and so he could see the cherry trees, apple blossom, the magnolia by the ornamental lake. As she approached she saw that he was sitting on his bed, hunting in the cabinet that held his stuff.

He’d never remembered the rucksack, and she wondered where it was.

“Hello,” she said, and gave Solas her usual bright smile of greeting as he turned around to face her.

He was frowning. “Ellen,” he said. “I’ve been waiting for you. Where’s Evie?”

She couldn’t get to sit on her usual chair, with his body and legs in the way. Instead, she stood uncertainly beside the cabinet, her back to the brilliant sunshine. “Evie couldn’t pick me up. Something held her up at work.”

Solas’ shoulders sagged. “This ward is crazy,” he said, not troubling to speak quietly. “Everyone talks in their sleep. One man shouts so loud it wakes me up. I can’t sleep here. They’re going to let me go tomorrow.”

“Back to your flat?” she asked, relieved that she would not have to let on she knew. “How will you manage?”

“I’ve arranged to have somebody come in twice a day to check on me. I hope that I won’t need them long.”

His cool composure was equal parts reassuring and concerning. “What if… but what if you can’t trust them?”

“Evie found the agency for me. She’s going to vet the people personally. I told you about this already, Ellen!”

“This is the first time you’ve talked to me about it, Solas,” she said, as calmly as she could. At his sudden look of consternation, she sat down beside him on the bed, ignoring the ward rules that forbade it, and put her arm around his back. “But… I am pleased to hear you talked it through with Evie. And if it helps you sleep…”

“It will,” said Solas, with a glare over his shoulder through the curtains to the ward behind them. He slipped his own arm around her and held her close. “And it will be easier for you to visit me, and bring Ana, or your friends.”

“That’s true,” said Ellen. “It will be strange to change the routine though. We’ve become a bit institutionalised.”

A rueful smile graced Solas’ lips as she leant back and looked up at him. His blue eyes crinkled. “ _We_?”

If he could make a joke, it was a good day. She returned the smile more easily. “You thought it was just you?”

Solas shook his head sadly. “I’m sorry. I know this is sudden. Dr Amell suggested another week, but she didn’t press it. But, yesterday, after you’d gone, I remembered more. I have to get out. Tomorrow… visit me at home?”

  



	19. Heatwave

The block of flats sweltered in the afternoon sunshine, light bouncing off every pale surface and narrow window, heat rising from the tarmac and the paving stones. Ellen unlocked the main door with her key and breathed a sigh of relief as she stumbled into the cool interior. Unseasonably hot, even for June.

She’d come straight from work, texting Evie, Lanaya and Merrill so they knew where she was going, and the pleated skirt of her gold and ivory dress was clinging to her legs. Propping the heavy jute bag of groceries against the wall, she popped the keys back inside her handbag next to the panic alarm, straightened her dress, and got ready to climb the stairs. As well as the groceries, she had a cotton shrug rolled up in her canvas tote, underneath the cakes she’d bought. Both that tote and her handbag were slung over her right shoulder, making for a heavy weight as she toiled up the three flights of stairs with the groceries in her left hand.  She was glad she’d left her heels under her desk at work and worn the tan-coloured sandals instead.

She hoped today would stay a good day, and as she knocked on the flat door, tried to ignore the flutter of anxiety. _Cakes,_ she thought, inhaling a strong dash of perfume from her wrist as she let it fall back down.

There was no answer, not even when she knocked a second time, and Ellen found herself catastrophising. She told herself what Wynne had said last week, when they’d discussed what might happen if he was discharged. They’d swept his flat, Evie had persuaded him to get a high-spec intruder system installed like the one she’d got in her flat. Everything practical that could be done to safeguard him had been done. He’d probably be safer in his flat that he had been in hospital, and if she told herself that enough times, maybe she’d even believe it.

The sick feeling in the pit of her stomach grew, but just as she was about to fit her own key in the lock, she heard the sound of the latch turning from the inside. The door opened, and she looked up into Solas’ face.

Relief swamped her, and for a moment all she could see was the steady rise and fall of his chest.

Ellen swayed on her feet, overwhelmed by the terror of her own imaginings and a raw delight to see him here.

“I had expected you to use the buzzer,” said Solas, and held the door open so that she could step into the hall, then closed it smartly, almost slamming it. “That would have given me chance to get to the door.”

He seemed cross with her, and relief soured to disappointment.

“I’m sorry,” she said, as calmly as she could, dropping the groceries by her feet. “Force of habit. You remember that Evie and I have been coming here every week to check your mail since Rhys gave me the keys?”

“Yes, of course I remember that,” said Solas snappishly, as if his memory of events hadn’t been impacted at all over the last few months. “That’s not the point! The point is… well…”

He trailed off, and she turned to face him, seeing the details she had missed in her first once-over. His patterned blue shirt had been donned in haste, because the buttons didn’t match. It hung loose over his cream-coloured slacks, and she realised again how pale and thin he was compared to how he’d seemed when she first knew him.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “When did you get back home? I bought us cakes to celebrate.”

“That was nice of you. I got here… an hour ago? I think. There were delays due to… paperwork, I think?”

He sounded exhausted, as if he were barely able to follow through the motions of politeness. Hanging her handbag on a spare hook, she tried to forget she’d been at work all day, dealing with Ana half the night, and remember that being discharged from hospital, and coming back to the flat in a taxi alone, might not have been easy either.

“Solas…” she began, watching him jerk in surprise as she took his hand, pressing her warm fingers around his cold ones. “It’s ok. You don’t have to stand on ceremony. Let’s get you sat down, and I’ll make drinks.”

Shaking his head, a frown between his eyes, he warned her: “There’s no milk. The delivery’s coming tonight.”

Ellen smiled. “I thought of that. Look!” She showed him the contents of the bag. “Milk, butter, cheese. Porridge oats. Pizza, ready meals, coffee. All vegetarian and organic. I didn’t bother with tea because you never drink it.”

His face softened. “If you carried that all the way, I would like to make the drinks.” She frowned up at him uncertainly, and he added: “No! Please, Ellen, sit down. I can manage. And… thank you. For thinking of it.”

“Let me at least carry it into the kitchen,” said Ellen, suiting the action to the words before she gave in and walked across to settle on the sofa. She watched as he took longer than usual to get the kettle plugged in, and to find the things he needed, trailing across the small kitchenette multiple times for mugs, a teaspoon, milk, coffee, sugar and a tray. At one point he seemed to realise that his shirt was wrongly buttoned, and turned away to fix it. His usual confidence seemed to have evaporated. Was he… embarrassed? Maybe he just needed time.

“Thank you,” she said, as he walked across with the tray. She took her mug of coffee, the fine bone china with the William Morris print, and sighed with pleasure as she breathed in the scent then took a sip.

“My mother used to swear by coffee on a hot day,” he said, smiling faintly. “At least in your job you expect it.”

“Yes,” said Ellen, laughing. “We predicted this heatwave back in April, so I made sure I had comfy sandals. I hope you don’t mind that I kept them on? After walking in this heat, my feet will be rather smelly.”

Solas sat back in his armchair. “If you’d be more comfortable, you could wash your feet in the bathroom.”

Ellen rolled her eyes. “That’s a polite way of saying that you _do_ mind, isn’t it?”

“Perhaps,” admitted Solas, with a shrug. He looked down at the coffee in his hands, and shook his head slightly. “Or perhaps I simply wish to give you the opportunity to escape.”

“I don’t want to escape!” said Ellen, as she got up and made for the bathroom. Goodness, he was worse than a four year-old. She came back, minus the offending sandals, her cooled and dried feet sinking into beige carpet, and collected the cakes from her tote bag on the way. She hoped they might find favour.

Thankfully, the interlude had allowed Solas time to collect himself, and he smiled as she opened the pink and white striped box to show him the little decorated cupcakes, peach and silver and peppermint, then again as she presented him with a plate with the lemony one he’d chosen and an old silver dessert fork with which to eat it.

“These are delicious,” he said after a minute, licking the sweet crumbs from his lips. “How long can you stay?”

 _Always,_ she thought, and mentally kicked herself. He meant _today_ , of course. “About an hour? Lanaya knows I’m here, but Ana gets upset if I’m not home when she expects me.”

“That is… understandable, of course,” said Solas. He fell silent, and she took the opportunity to dive into the banoffee-flavoured cupcake. As she finished, he gestured at the cupcake box. “Was this just for me?”

“I got them on impulse, from Patisserie Margaux near the studio. They were partly for you, and partly because my supervisor sent me his feedback on my latest draft. Dorian – Professor Pavus, you know – is happy with my progress. I should be able to submit in July, a couple of months before the deadline.”

“That is very well worth a box of cupcakes,” said Solas, raising his mug of coffee in salute. “I am pleased to hear that recent events have not delayed you too much. Do you want to take the rest home with you for Ana?”

Ellen thought for a moment, adjusting her plan, then offered: “We could split them if you want? If you would like to choose which two you want out of the remaining four, I’ll take the other two.”

“Always practical,” said Solas, approving. He leant forward to inspect them. “I will take the peppermint and vanilla ones, and you can have the violet and peachy pink cakes. Do I remember correctly that Ana likes purple?”

“Yes, but if you’d prefer the violet one do take it,” said Ellen. “I’m sure she would like any of them really.”

Solas shook his head and sat back, his hands steepled in front of his face, and took a breath. “We need to talk.”

“Are there new things you remember?” asked Ellen, recollecting what he’d said the previous day.

“Yes…” said Solas, glancing around the flat and shivering. “I remembered coming here after they’d stitched up my shoulder. Back here with you, Cole coming, leaving for the salon. I phoned the Inspector, and missed a call…”

His voice had fallen to a whisper, and he looked at her with more pain in his eyes than she had ever seen a man display. “I should have called Inspector Nightingale back right away. I should have told the police about Sofia.”

“What did the voicemail say?”

Solas frowned in perplexity. “I didn’t say there was a voicemail. And I wiped it. How did you know that?”

Ellen flinched. It was hard to guess what Solas might now know, or could not know. If his twin brother Evan knew about the voicemail, he was one of the… buggers, in both of its possible senses. But she’d guessed that already from his unfortunate escape. And, of course, if _she_ knew, then did Solas think that she was one of _them_?

“I… I… I’ll explain once you finish,” said Ellen, shivering suddenly at the icy look he gave her. Then, as he seemed disinclined to take that for an answer, added: “The consultant recommended that we not say anything!”

A grim chuckle was the response. “Yes, she told me that as well.” He paused, and the cold look vanished, to be replaced by one of infinite weariness. “And… I am sorry. I should have told you too, but I was frightened.”

“Frightened of what?”

He didn’t answer the question directly. “Sofia texted me while I was here, about the same time that Lanaya tried to call you too. She told me to get a particular train to Conwy and to dress as Evan, to tell _no-one_. That’s why I had the wig and rucksack. The voicemail came later, a superfluous addition that told me that Sofia must be in danger. I said the salon phones were bugged; she knew that too. That she didn’t care felt… like a cry for help.”

“I thought your phone was broken,” said Ellen, seizing on the first part. Another phone… maybe that was how he’d broken up with her? The police had tried to trace the number, and it was pay-as-you-go, no contract, dead.

“I had another, an old pay-as-you-go. I presume that it has not been found?” She shook her head, her heart sinking, and he sighed. “Then… forgive me, but I have to know: did you receive texts from it that day?”

He reeled off a number. “Can I check that against the one on my phone?” she asked.

“Yes, but you should know they weren’t from me. They were, I can only assume, from someone in Robert Corey’s employ. It was an error of miscalculation on my part, to leave that phone at the bottom of my rucksack.”

Ellen felt like her brain was about to burst, or her heart with happiness. “So it _wasn’t_ you who sent those texts?”

Solas shook his head, a half-smile lingering on his lips. “I love you, my heart. That you would visit me in hospital, knowing that I couldn’t know, and never forcing the issue, never offering me a kiss unless I asked…”

His eyes were filled with tears, and she ran across to kneel on the floor beside his chair. “I love you,” she said, taking his hand and stroking it gently. Enough for now, to _know_. “But… how did they find the rucksack?”

“I left it at the station in left luggage. Ellen… is it possible that my brother is alive and no-one told me?”

“Yes,” she said, as simply as she could. “He was pretending to be you. While were we rescuing Ana, he escaped.”

Solas looked stunned, as if his mind was racing far ahead of his exhausted body. “Alive! Escaped! With Sofia?”

“No, dearest. I’m sorry. Sofia is dead,” said Ellen. He’d been discharged, so she didn’t have to worry about the consultant any more. As succinctly as she could, she explained what she’d seen before and at the farmhouse.  

“Ah,” said Solas, a world of sorrow in his voice. “Sofia’s death… so unnecessary. Yet the way she treated me was… monstrous. It was my miscalculation to trust her, my pride… Those fools had driven her to madness.”

“The police believe Robert is in Venezuela, or at least, not in the UK,” added Ellen, biting her lip. “Presumably, they also interviewed Calpernia, after. Evan is still missing… as far as I know. I did worry he might target you.”

Solas nodded. “The last thing I remember before I lost consciousness,” he said, gripping her hand tightly, “was Sofia taunting me about the texts. Evan would take my place, she’d marry him. Something about _mine_.”

“I am sorry I couldn’t tell you before,” said Ellen. Carefully, she brought his hand to her lips and kissed it. “ _Mine._ ”

  



	20. Sweltering

“I’ve got your socks ready,” said Ellen, as she turned the tap off. One more glance in the mirror: _yes, ok._

“No! I want my stripey tights,” said Ana. She pouted fiercely at Ellen.

“You’ll be too hot in tights today,” said Ellen, trying to sound more patient than she felt. She sighed at the white socks in her hand that would complement Ana’s gold party dress. “I can check your stripey socks if you want?”

“What stripey socks?”

“The purple and pink ones you wore two days ago.”

Ana’s face lit up, remembering. “Yes! Stripes! Purple stripes!”

Thankfully the socks had aired quickly on the clothes dryer, and were bone dry already. Ellen ran back with them, her heels clicking on the wooden floor, and knelt down in front of the sofa to help Ana pull them on, and then her pale pink trainers, tightening the Velcro strap across them. So good to be able to buy Ana new things.

“Right,” she said. “Let’s go.”

“Can I take Owly?”

“Owly’s in my bag already,” said Ellen, checking the security system. She smiled down at her daughter and ushered her out of the door. “You said you wanted her this morning, so I brought her.”

It was later than she’d wanted to be ready, but thankfully they lived near a main bus route, so the buses were every ten minutes on a Saturday. Solas’ birthday meal awaited them. She hadn’t put him down as someone who would make a fuss of his birthday, but after the year he’d had so far, no-one could blame him for wanting to celebrate in company. And, of course, it was the perfect excuse for Ana to be introduced to him again.

Sure enough, a bus arrived within a few minutes, and they climbed up to the top deck, Ana thrilled to find that there was a seat right at the front. With no obvious compromise available and her goal to keep Ana in the best mood possible for the meal, Ellen decided not to suggest a different seat, even though she knew it would be the hottest place on the bus. By the time they arrived at their stop, Ellen was sweltering, checking the time every couple of minutes, and it was a relief to climb down and out on to the pavement.

The restaurant was by the riverside, five minutes’ walk away in an old, converted mill. Ana had quizzed her the previous night about who would be there – Niamh, with Merrill and Lanaya; and Solas, who she’d met at Lanaya’s wedding, it was his birthday, he was thirty-seven, and yes that was (a lot) older than Mummy; and Mummy’s friend Evie; and Rhys who was Solas’ friend and Evie’s friend and who had driven across from Wales, and he kept alpacas from South America just like Mummy’s abuela that she was named after.

Now Ana was quiet, holding on to her hand and looking nervous. “My feet hurt,” she said.

“It’s not far,” said Ellen, who had consulted the online map again on the bus. “Remember Niamh will be there.”

It had all been so carefully planned, this first meeting in months between her daughter and her… well, boyfriend, she supposed, if not exactly lover. Solas had included Niamh and her guardians as familiar company for Ana, when his own preference must have been for a smaller group. They had a private room booked, to keep it manageable for Solas. They’d reminded the others that Ana didn’t know her mother was seeing Solas yet.

What we need to do, she’d said, is keep it light. Unthreatening and fun. We’re _friends,_ and we see how it goes.

Her heart fluttered in her chest as she climbed the stairs within the restaurant, following the blond, slim Spanish waiter with the tanned skin and the dark brown eyes. In no way similar to Solas, except for being tall and slim, but the look of unfeigned admiration he’d given her had reminded her of how Solas’ eyes brightened when…

No! She couldn’t think about his kisses now, couldn’t think about how she’d laid down on his bed and let him kiss from jawbone to sternum, her body flush beside his own. Not when he was there – smart, gorgeous, real – across the circular table; and not when she was helping Ana into her seat beside Niamh; and not when she was avoiding the hot gaze of the waiter as he pulled her chair back; and certainly not when she sat down directly opposite Solas, their gazes meeting over the smart black salt and pepper mills and jugs of iced water.

His cheeks were slightly pink. Ellen smoothed her dress down, knowing he’d never seen this one before, with its riot of daisies over a grey gingham check, and smiled to see him notice the emerald brooch she’d pinned to it.

It seemed that Merrill, Lanaya and Niamh had also only just arrived, for Solas was still making introductions: Rhys on his right to Merrill on his left, and then Lanaya between her wife and Niamh. At Ana’s command, Ellen fished out Owly from her bag, swapping it for the wine glass in Ana’s place. She grinned as Lanaya, kind as ever, passed new glittery notebooks and pencils for the girls to draw with, and nodded her thanks across the table.

Everyone had made an effort: from Evie in a pale blue shift dress, her hair free from its usual plaits and flowing over her shoulders, to Merrill in a silvery sleeveless top. Rhys and Solas wore long-sleeved shirts and ties. Ellen was glad for their sakes and her own that the room was shaded from the direct heat of the sun. Tall narrow windows set into the stone led to vistas over the river, towards the museum and cathedral. Ellen breathed a quiet sigh of relief – _we made it! –_ and fell to scanning the menu to see what Ana would be most likely to eat.

As she turned back to her place setting from placing their orders with the slim blond waiter, Solas caught her eyes again and smiled. A reassuring smile, as if to say: _you can allow yourself another chance to be happy._

That’s what Wynne had said as well.

If memories were pages, this felt like the start of a brand new chapter of her life. The lunch passed quickly: Ana ate her pizza margherita, drank her milk; Ellen savoured her mint and lemon fettucine and let herself be persuaded into another glass of rosé by Merrill, who almost knocked her own glass flying as she sat back down, still excited that Solas and she had studied the same course at the same university, exactly a decade previously.

Now Solas was laughing at some story Rhys was telling about his beloved alpacas, and looking happier than she had seen him in months. Ellen herself had been distracted by Ana’s requests for pizza-cutting-up, more-milk or Mummy-my-pencil’s-fallen-on-the-floor, but Evie had followed the tale with interest. It turned out her aunt had a small farm in Brittany, keeping sheep and pigs and growing potatoes, and she had loved her summers there.

“Is it hard on your own?” asked Merrill of Rhys, waving her glass and almost splashing rosé on Solas’ pristine shirt. “Being a farmer, I mean, of course I didn’t mean anything else! God, I’m making this worse aren’t I?”

Lanaya put a calming hand on her arm. “No, love, we know what you mean. Farmers work long hours.”

To Ellen’s left, Evie was suddenly studying the dessert menu, and Solas’ eyes veiled amusement as he inched his chair back away from the table, glancing across the table to her and Ellen before gesturing for Rhys to respond.

“I hire help for the shearing,” said Rhys, his Welsh accent both more pronounced and higher-pitched than Solas’ as he turned to address Merrill. “I breed the alpacas for their fleece so they must be shorn with great care.”

Niamh had finished her pizza and was making Owly eat the rest. She looked up, puzzled. “What’s an alpapa?”

“Alpa **k** a,” said Ana, very serious. “Not alpapa! Mummy said they were like sheep, but with long necks.”

“That’s about right,” said Rhys. His brown eyes twinkled at her. “They like to be in a herd, just as sheep do.”

“Awww,” said Niamh, making them all laugh as the waiter took their pudding orders. “Fluffy sheepy things.”

“There used to be sheep as well, just as your aunt had,” continued Rhys, venturing a shy smile at Evie on his right. “When Solas’ grandfather was alive. He kept the farm up into his eighties.”

“But my father didn’t want to be a farmer,” continued Solas to the table at large, “so my grandfather arranged for Rhys to take on the lease once he was too old to keep it going. My father was…” He trailed off, swallowed, then continued: “My father was angry. He thought grandfather should have let him sell the place outright.”

“Would you have bought it, Rhys, had it been on the market?” asked Evie, breaking her silence.

Rhys looked uncomfortable. “If I’d had the money,” he said. “These days… well. I have the leasehold.”

“Maybe we should discuss the freehold later,” said Solas, with a startled glance at Rhys. “No… wait.”

“What’s the issue?” asked Ellen, curious enough to set tact aside. The desserts had arrived, and the girls were absorbed in contemplation of their icecreams, comparing the size of their chocolate flakes.

“My brother,” said Solas. He frowned deeply. “My father left the freehold of the smallholding to Evan, to pass to me if Evan died without issue. Since Evan’s will was read, legally the freehold is now mine. But morally…”

Rhys put a hand on his arm, murmuring something in Welsh. “I am in no hurry, Solas,” he added. “Though, if you do not mind, I will pay you the ground rent this year. If it troubles you, you can set it aside for Evan.”

“ _Diolch,_ Rhys,” said Solas, still shaking his head slightly. “It is a troubling matter.”

Ellen looked down at her dessert, a confection of white chocolate and almonds. By some coincidence she’d chosen the same as Solas – or perhaps not, given that the menu had referred to _Venezuelan white chocolate_.

She took a bite, and smiled despite the dark tone that the conversation had taken. “Solas, this is good!”

He stared at the plate as if surprised to find it still there, then tasted the flavours. “You are correct,” he said, the tension ebbing away from him again like the ocean from a sandy beach at midnight.

Merrill looked up from her tiramisu, then giggled. “Oh look! All the couples have the same desserts!”

Ellen could see Lanaya all but rolling her eyes at her – now more drunk than tipsy – wife. Merrill’s elfin frame didn’t help her absorb the alcohol, and none of them drank much as a rule. Lanaya had stuck to elderflower, not so much a designated driver as a designated person who would make sure that the children went to the loos. Next time, thought Ellen, she should offer to take that role – Lanaya had enough childcare during the week.

Unfortunately Ana had heard. “I’ve got the same as Niamh,” she said. “And you two,” she indicated Rhys and Evie, who was blushing fiercely, “are having cheesecake. Mummy, who has the same as you?”

“I do,” said Solas across the table, and Ellen wondered if he’d heard Merrill’s initial comment.

Ana looked puzzled. “But you and Mummy aren’t a couple.”

“Merrill just meant that each pudding was being had by two people,” said Lanaya, with a calm smile.

“No,” said Merrill, running a hand through her short dark hair. “That’s not what I… ow!”

Lanaya had obviously kicked her under the table, probably too hard. Ellen fixed her eyes on her white chocolate and almond roulade, willing herself not to laugh… or make it seem like anything was happening.

As a slightly uncomfortable silence threatened to descend upon the table, with Ana’s spoon of icecream poised halfway to her mouth, Ellen’s heart hammering, and Solas slowly petrifying into marble, a phone went off.

“Oh, sorry, it’s mine!” said Evie, after a moment. She dragged her eyes away from Rhys’ face, scrabbling in her handbag for the phone. Her eyes widened at something on the screen. She pushed her chair back from the table, so fast that Ellen had to catch it as it swayed, and strode out of the room, becoming more and more of a police officer with each stride. With determined effort, Ellen pushed the heavy chair back in.

“Mummy,” whispered Ana. Ellen looked down at her, still trying to smile serenely. “Why did Merrill say _ow_?”

  



	21. Drought

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back again - sorry for the delay between chapters but it's been a busy couple of weeks IRL. Hope this makes up for it!

Monday, and she’d seen him on the way to work. Not by intention, but by accident: exiting a café on the other side of the road; striding purposefully down a side street in the sun. His gait was unmistakable, that long-legged swaying walk, and he must have bought a new t-shirt, for she’d never seen him wear that shade before.

Stopping for a moment, irresolute, Ellen had pondered whether to hurry after him and ask him if she might come round to his place after work. But it was the morning rush hour: the road would be a nightmare to cross. Better to text him later, she decided, walking on, now he had finally taken the plunge and replaced his mobile. She’d had to think fast at the meal to prevent a talk she didn’t want to have quite yet with Ana; and since her daughter couldn’t read yet, texting would be preferable to calling, to keep in touch throughout the evenings.

She glanced across the road again, and saw Florianne come out of the same café, a heavy briefcase in her hand.

Florianne wasn’t a briefcase kind of woman – the designer handbag she had slung over her shoulder took her make-up, phone and wallet, keys, and not much more. So that was strange, thought Ellen, and so was the way that Florianne glanced up and down the street as if to check that someone was, or wasn’t, there.

Two strange things in quick succession made her nervous, but she could hardly phone Inspector Nightingale and say: Solas is wearing a grey t-shirt! Florianne is carrying a briefcase! What should I do?

Turning quickly before Florianne could see her, Ellen pressed on towards the studio. Heat rose dully from the pavements; hot dry air pumped out from building vents; the morning sun beat down unceasingly: a triple threat. It hadn’t been this hot in June for years, or at least not for so long a period. Sprinkler bans and empty reservoirs; the best summer ever for ice cream sellers – and she’d even managed to mention climate change, once.

She’d caught Briala smiling at her after that, behind Gaspard, a twisted smile as if to say – they’ll never let you do _that_ again. It turned out the family were ardent deniers – of climate change as well as so many other things, such as why, when they clearly all despised each other, they hung on to the family firm. Briala, of course, was there for Celene and wouldn’t defend her even if she agreed: having made the jump from personal assistant to… more personal assistant, the woman wasn’t angling to lose her job and lover at one stroke.

Greeting colleagues as she passed them, Ellen found her desk within the open-plan, and booted up her computer, ready to start preparing her contribution. While she waited, her attention was drawn by Briala hovering by the watercooler, her dark hair piled up in its usual afro bun. Usually she was nowhere to be seen at this time of the morning. Ellen frowned, then jumped as a large hand gripped her shoulder.

“My sister hasn’t shown up yet,” came Gaspard’s voice, almost joyful in its sneering. Ellen, who had stiffened at the unwanted touch, managed not to glare up at him. “You will do the next slot in her place. Prepare.”

He’d strode off, muttering angrily, and she’d given herself a shake. _Get PhD, get full-time job, resign._ It would do no good, she mused uneasily, to run after him and say that she’d seen Florianne on the way – it was a matter of honour to Gaspard that no order of his should be questioned, and certainly not publically.

And indeed there was no sign of Florianne for the next half-hour as she crammed the work in, nor in make-up, nor when she returned to the open-plan after filming the slot. Vivienne de Fer had raised a pencilled eyebrow at the change when she’d walked on to the set, but mercifully made no comment – on air or otherwise.

Ellen sat down, pulled her standard-issue swivel chair into the desk, then frowned to see a small yellow post-it note peeking out from underneath her keyboard. _TOILETS, 11AM. B_ , it read, in tiny, looping capitals, and B could only be Briala. She crushed it in her hand. Why the secrecy?

The computer clock read 10:54, so after checking the latest readings from their forecast provider, Ellen quietly got to her feet, smoothed her dress down, grabbed her handbag, and made her way out on to the main corridor.

It was deserted, and her heels clicked on the polished tiled floor as she walked down to the ladies’ loos at the end. The main reception desk was empty, with no-one from security at their usual post. Ellen clutched her handbag tighter. She had her phone and panic alarm in it.

As she passed the closed door to Celene’s executive suite, she heard a muffled sound of groaning from inside. A deep voice – not Briala, not Celene, and it didn’t sound like Gaspard. She tried the handle. It was locked.

Whoever was in there must have heard her approach and stop, for the voice called out: “Please! Help!”

“I can’t,” she said. “The door’s locked. There’s no-one at the reception desk.”

“That’s because… I’m in here,” said the voice. “Call the police, quick! She forced me in here. She’s got a gun!”

Forgetting Briala’s message entirely, Ellen dove into her bag, and dialled the emergency number. “Which she?” she asked, testing the door handle again in vain as she waited for it to connect.

“I don’t know! She had a mask on!”

Behind her, she heard the door to the ladies’ open, and span around, hiding the phone to the door side.

“So inquisitive,” laughed another voice. _Florianne?!_ Ellen gaped in horror as she saw the dark mask, the pistol in her hand, and froze. “What a pleasure, to find you here… alone. I wasn’t certain that you’d find my message.”

Some instinct bade her keep the woman talking. “You left the message.”

“Naturally I did. Your freedom seems such a little price to pay for me to gain this studio, and all my family’s wealth. You should be glad they wanted you alive. I gather that the Coreys don’t care much in general.”

At her ear, the operator’s voice buzzed: “Police, fire or ambulance? Which service do you need?”

“Police! I’m being… kidnapped at gunpoint?” she said, to both the operator and to Florianne. The tall blonde woman advanced, grabbed her arm and wrestled the phone from her grasp with one hand.  Florianne was surprisingly strong, or perhaps it was just the fear of the gun that made Ellen terrified of fighting back.

“Palace TV!” yelled Ellen, as Florianne hissed at the phone and threw it down on the floor, where it smashed with a horrible shattering metallic sound. “Why are you doing this? Is this for Robert Corey?”

“Robert Corey promised to make me powerful beyond my wildest dreams,” smiled Florianne, dragging her mercilessly along the corridor. The barrel of the gun was pressed against her forearm. “Faster, or I’ll shoot.”

“He’s lying,” gasped Ellen, as Florianne heaved the fire door open, and hurried them down the flimsy metal stairway in a silence absent of alarms. Planned, all planned. Broad daylight, blazing, dry and hot – and Ellen could scarcely believe that this was happening so quickly. _Ana!_ At the foot, in the car park, a gleaming black car waited like a predatory panther. “He’s lying,” she insisted, desperately. “There’s still time to turn back!”

“You’re so naïve,” sneered Florianne. “He showed me those videos of you, you know. And of Celene.”

Ellen felt the blood rush to her cheeks, and for a moment she contemplated fighting Florianne to get the gun. But, just then, and suddenly, Florianne pushed her, hard and cruel. She tumbled down the final flight of stairs, landing in a heap at the feet of two burly men. They smelled of cigarettes and vodka. Despite her screams, they snatched her handbag from her, lifted and bundled her into the boot of the car, slammed it shut, and drove.

****

It was dark, and cramped, and they had been driving for hours. They’d stopped, once, near fields in the middle of nowhere, a gun trained on her throughout, tying her ankles together before allowing her a drink and the chance to pee behind a hedge. The daylight hurt her eyes. She’d tried to get them talking but they wouldn’t say a word more than necessary. Before they hefted her back into the boot, they gagged her and tied her wrists.

The men drove fast. As far as she could guess, they seemed to be heading west. Ellen had to hope and pray that the police had got her message and that Detective Chief Inspector Pentaghast would be on the case already.

As time wore on, that bright thought faded, just like the memory of sunlight over fields. She guessed it might be evening, and that they were near a city from the changing noises and the slow stop-start in traffic. The car rolled onwards, turned and stopped. She felt and heard the car doors slam, its inhabitants leaving it… and her.

A few minutes later, other voices passed the car. She tried to call out, or rock the car, but no-one seemed to hear or notice anything unusual. Half-an-hour later, growing hungrier, when no-one had returned, she felt the car rock gently, slowly, as if it was being moved by something other than its own volition.

Ellen tried to focus, not to panic. Could she be upon a ferry? If so, how far might they go? Ireland seemed the likeliest option – she knew that Belfast had a port, and Dublin. How many hours would that be? She’d no idea, but guessed it might be several. Suddenly terrified of running out of air, and remembering Solas’ loss of consciousness, she tried to adjust herself into a recovery position, and breathe as calmly as she could.

Silence was deceptive. The police would trace her call, the car, they’d find her if they could.

Robert wanted her alive – though Florianne had said _they, the Coreys_ – so surely her captors had incentive to ensure that she was fine, even as they hid her from pursuit. She didn’t know their names. One had dark hair, a long pale face, a sour expression. The other one had fair hair, neat as an army recruit’s crewcut.

Thinking of Ana didn’t help – the thought of her little girl trying to get to sleep and worrying about Mummy – no, that really wouldn’t do. By all that was sacred she hoped that it was only her that had been kidnapped this time.

Ellen remembered Solas with the t-shirt, and the briefcase Florianne had held, and kicked herself again for not remaining more alert. Then, belatedly, she wondered whether it had after all been Solas, or whether it was _Evan_ she had seen. Had he been meeting Florianne – was this all connected – and what did Robert want with her?!

On that final thought she strained once more against the restraints, fuming at her impotence and carelessness.

There was really nothing she could do, no preparation, nothing she should do, except keep calm.

Up and down the car rose on the tide.

She counted sheep.

Time passed.

****

Her forced calmness helped her until and when they finally, finally, got back in the car, not daring to check on her, then drove away. Yet mere minutes passed before they stopped again, and this time, opened up the boot.

The sky was fiery orange, darkened remnants of a midsummer sunset. Ellen couldn’t walk, and at first was almost content to be carried, limp, in Sour’s arms, while Crewcut slammed the boot and locked the car. They’d parked near a beach, and Sour’s feet slipped upon the sand, jolting her up and down. Then horror struck: she realised they were striding towards an aeroplane – a private jet, she guessed, its lights off, dark against the sand.

_How can Cassandra Pentaghast find me after this?_

She shook her head and wriggled in Sour’s grasp, more terrified than she had been when facing Florianne with a gun, adrenalin deserting her. Her captor snarled down at her: “Behave.” He carried her on and into the plane, and dumped her in a cabin, upright – gagged, restrained – within a seat, and fastened up her seat belt for take-off.

Crewcut had disappeared, but soon returned with three other men. Ellen’s eyes widened. One man was unfamiliar to her, but the other two… One was her ghost Robert Corey. _Shit_. Yet the other, the other, the other…

The other, impossibly tall and neat, was Cole.

  



	22. Humid

Ellen shivered. Everything was so wrong here that she wouldn’t have been surprised to see the water flowing upwards. This room was carved into the rock, three-quarters of its boundary a single jagged wall, with reliefs of the same bronze raven placed at intervals along it; the other wall a waterfall. The air was warm and humid. 

The waterfall seemed to be the only exit, though that must be a lie as well.

The place felt oddly familiar, though… as if she’d seen it in a dream, or pictures in a book.

Before she even tried to stand, she felt faint from lack of food, and nauseous from fear. The bed on which she lay was large, the mirrored ceiling above reflecting its green bedspread and her own dishevelment. The same red dress she’d worn at the studio, now creased and smudged with dirt. Noting belatedly the lack of gag and bindings, she pushed herself to her feet, her bare feet scraping on the rough stone tiles before she found her matching red heels tucked underneath the bed. Neatly side by side, placed by design.

Instinctively she reached down for them. As she did, a voice boomed out, from somewhere behind a screaming statue opposite: “But _here_ is Miss Lavellan, awake at last. My dear, there is no need to stand on ceremony. But you are a guest here in my home, so by all means, let me be courteous. Do let me come and greet you soon.”

Ellen jumped back at once, leaving the shoes on the floor. The voice had been deep and masculine, filled with a mocking, lazy laughter that terrified her more, she decided hastily, than direct threats would have done.

Yet bile was rapidly replaced by anger, and determination. Not bending down, she thrust her feet into the shoes.

They must have carried her in here somehow. There must be a way out. _Remember…_

 _The plane._ Gagged and bound, there’d been no chance to talk to anyone. As soon as Robert had seen her he had nodded, curt and angry, then turned to leave again, followed immediately by Cole. Only a flicker of sympathy in Cole’s eyes, such as one might cast on any woman bound, betrayed that he remembered her.

The other man had been the pilot: Loghain, they called him, stern, with the bearing of a soldier. He’d gone through the other door. Sour – who they'd called Samson – had fastened the seat belt over her, before sitting down nearby. Soon afterwards she’d felt the pressure of changing acceleration that meant take-off.

 _Small mercies:_ they’d let her use the toilet on the plane, and Samson had removed the gag briefly once or twice to let her drink. Nothing was offered for her to eat, and eventually she’d slept through nervous exhaustion.

She couldn’t forget the videos they’d taken, nor Florianne’s betrayal. What had happened to Celene?

A sudden sound of footsteps behind her had her whirling round: eyes narrowed, body tensed. Sure enough, there was an entrance, a section of rock that confused the eye into believing it was continuous.

“ _Hola?”_ came a voice, swiftly followed by a dark-haired woman in a turquoise tunic and sharp black trousers. Insouciant blue eyes, a blood-red scar across her nose. Ellen allowed herself to relax, but only slightly. The terrifying voice could not belong to this charismatic, smiling woman.

“ _Estas despierto!_ ” said the newcomer. “ _Mi nombre es Marian Hawke, me llaman “Hawke”. Con una “e”._ ”

Ellen tried to remember her Spanish. _Hello? You’re awake! My name is Marian Hawke. Call me Hawke._

“ _Hola_ ,” she replied in Spanish, unable to prevent her voice from quavering. “I’m… _mi nombre es_ Ellen.”

“Oh… you’re English too,” said Marian Hawke, with a sigh of relief, switching into English and speaking in a rapid, southern English accent, with just enough edge not to be posh. “You looked like you came from here. From Venezuela, like the divine Justinia. With her help I have just enough Spanish to get on with the staff here.”

“From… here? Justinia?”

Marian Hawke strode across the room, and Ellen saw a hint of fury in her eyes, despite the welcoming smile.

“Stunning woman,” said Hawke. “She’s in my room. Come and meet her before our booming friend gets here.”

The newcomer stood in front of her, facing the wall, and made a raised finger gesture up at the ceiling behind her. _We’re being watched,_ she mouthed, and Ellen managed not to look where she pointed.

“Nice to meet you,” she said instead, after a tiny pause. “I was… brought on a flight. With… Robert Corey.”

“The younger one, I assume,” said Hawke. “That’s who brought me. The elder one likes to collect, I think.”

Her own fingernails needed cutting; she’d cut herself. Ellen rubbed at the palm of her hand. “The elder one?”

“ _El Antiguo,_ they call him. The son entices people. _He_ collects them.”

Voices called from down below, audible through the cascade of the waterfall, and Hawke blanched. She turned to stand beside Ellen with a sudden bright fake smile, and reached out to draw Ellen’s arm into her own.

The woman was strong. Even if Ellen had wanted to stay here, the grip upon her forearm was muscular and forceful, propelling her across the room. Sweat dripped down her back, and the red dress burned darker.

Before they had taken a couple of steps, the voice called out, deep and callous: “Did you think you mattered, Hawke? Did you think anything you ever did mattered? You couldn’t save that hospital. You can’t beat _me._ ”

“That’s El Antiguo,” muttered Hawke, her cheeks flushed red with annoyance. “Tannoy system. Come on!”

“I thought Robert Corey was El Antiguo,” said Ellen faintly, quickening her steps as they rounded the rocky outspur and strode along a curving corridor. It seemed to be carved out of the rock itself, with strange surrealist art in canvas prints hung at intervals on its smooth dull walls: dining tables, bleeding corpses, screaming statues. Again it all felt horribly familiar, as if she ought to know how all this worked. _Food. I need food._

Hawke sighed. “The one who brought you was the son. The one who’s talking is the father. Have you met him?”

Ellen shook her head. “I was once engaged to Robert – to the son. Long ago. I thought he’d died!”

The tannoy broke in again, this time echoing through a painting. “Varric is going to die, Hawke.”

Ellen jumped, and clutched at Hawke’s arm. “Varric…?” she whispered.

The voice continued, unhearing. “Just like your family, and everyone you ever cared about. You’re a failure.”

“I’ve heard it all before,” said Hawke, through gritted teeth. “Playing on our fears. Ignore it.”

They’d reached Hawke’s room, a mirror image to the one they’d left: the single wall three-quarters round; bronze ravens; the waterfall. A woman in a long white gown was staring out through the waterfall – Justinia?

“But Varric – that’s an unusual name,” said Ellen urgently, forgetting the woman’s command to ignore the words. “My friend Merrill has a friend called Varric. At university together. He’s a writer. Red hair. Short.”

“It’ll be the same one then,” said Hawke, her lips pressed tightly together. “I met him _after_ university though.”

“But they said he was going to die!”

Hawke stopped, and turned on Ellen, as sharp and fierce as her namesake. “ _Everyone_ is going to die,” she hissed, then added, as quietly as her anger would allow, in Ellen’s ear. “ _We_ are going to _escape_.”

Justinia turned around and faced them, as pure and serene as if she had been posing for a calendar, _Great Waterfalls of Venezuela_. Ignoring Hawke’s rage, she stepped forward to stand in front of Ellen, and passed her a muffin – an _arepa,_ thought Ellen, remembering Aba Shanna – filled with ham. Ellen began to wolf it down.

“Miss Lavellan?” Her voice was musical, and kind. “My name is Justina De Dios. I have expected you.”

Justinia smiled kindly at Hawke, who nodded sullenly. “Yes,” she sighed. “You were right. _Now_ can we go?”

“How can we get out?” asked Ellen through a mouthful of _arepa_ and ham. “And what about Varric?”

“I have pulled the lever,” said Justinia. She’d produced a hairbrush from somewhere, and was sweeping it through her long black hair. “The lift will be here in twenty seconds of a minute.”

“Varric brought me here,” explained Hawke. “Robert Corey swindled us both. Varric traced the money back to here. We’ve worked out where they’re keeping him. But we need to go down the falls in the lift first.”

“I will provide a suitable distraction,” said Justinia, as if explaining a lesson to a child. Ellen winced. _Ana._

“I can’t let you,” said Hawke in anguish. “I can’t abandon you to this place!”

“They will be here in one minute,” repeated Justinia. She pointed to a glass shaft in the waterfall, hidden till now, and the glass box lift inside it. “I am Venezuelan. I must stay. I do not have passport to the land of Britain.”

Shaking her head in despair, Hawke pulled Ellen into the lift. “I will never forget you,” she called to Justinia just before the lift doors closed. Then, losing no time, she pulled her turquoise tunic over her head, revealing to Ellen’s amazement an array of hidden weaponry – two handguns and a dagger tucked into her trousers.

“Can you shoot?” Ellen shook her head, and tried not to think of Sophia. “You’d better have the knife then.”

Hawke passed her the dagger. A museum piece: leather scabbard, an ivory handle. _Very sharp, though._

“What silly little girls,” called out the voice, this time from speakers set into the roof of the lift. “You ought to have left all this in my hands, _Elena_ – forgotten as your grandfather did. There is no law here now but mine.”

“Maybe I ought to blast your speakers off,” muttered Hawke. Then she frowned, her hands pausing on the holsters of the guns tucked into her padded bulletproof vest. “What’s that about your grandfather, Ellen?”

“His name was Arturo Bella Ruiz. He owned land in Venezuela.” Then it clicked, why this place was so familiar. Photographs in black and white, an album of her grandparents. “This complex! This place belongs to me!”

“Possession is nine-tenths of the law,” said Hawke, hefting a gun in each hand as the lift reached its destination. “Or in this place, all of it. Stay behind me, close to the walls. No heroics please. Only fight in self-defence.”

The lift doors opened, and Ellen’s eyes grew wide as Hawke shot the two guards waiting, shots straight to the body. The guards fell to the rough stone floor, jerking in shock. _There’s no blood. There’s no blood._

“Tasered,” said Hawke, in laconic explanation. Then, as Ellen stared, she added: “Shit, Ellen. We’re escaping, not causing a massacre. This way!”

Hawke was skilled, and Ellen found herself admiring how in control of her own body the woman was: not a piece to be moved around by others; an actor. An agent of her own destiny, even under these strange circumstances.

“I think he’s round here somewhere,” whispered Hawke. They were staying close to the walls; apparently _El Antiguo_ could not quite see and hear all. “Justinia gave me some useful tips. I wish…”

Whatever Hawke wished was lost, because the tannoy boomed again, drowning out the rest of her sentence. “Once again, Hawke is in danger because of you, Varric. You traced the money. You brought her here…”

“He must be near here,” said Hawke. Her eyes lit up with triumph. Ellen’s feet were aching, and her body stiff from yesterday’s confinement. They were approaching an intersection in the corridor. Then… _footsteps?_

Six feet away, three men walked into view. Loghain the pilot. Cole. Solas! “Don’t shoot!” cried Ellen on instinct.

Too late: Hawke’s taser beam hit Solas square in the chest. His body crumpled like a paper doll in rain.

  



	23. Low visibility

They had the advantage of surprise, and Hawke’s other taser hit Loghain before he had the chance to aim. His gun – a real one, as far as she could tell – had fired as he fell, the shot whizzing through a monstrous black metal trident construction with three sharp pointing fingers, and shattering something behind it on the wall.

Ellen noticed for the first time the thin wires connecting each taser to the bodies, a sudden clarity that brought back memories of the hospital, and Solas wired to his machines. He was stretched out, stiff and shivering, and dressed in the same dark grey uniform that all El Antiguo’s men were wearing here. Pilot Loghain had curled into a ball, an expression of furious resistance on his face, as if he could defeat the pain with anger.

She managed not to retch. _Don’t be a pawn. Keep thinking. Look._

Hawke must have detached those wires somehow after shooting the guards on the way out of the lift. But with them in place, they were at a standstill. Loghain’s gun had clattered to the floor, and, before Ellen could move, Cole had snatched it up. He stood in between the two bodies, and brought the gun up in a single jerky motion.

It was pointing at Hawke. “Stop! I’ll sh… shoot,” called Cole.

“Go on then,” taunted Hawke. To Ellen’s horror, the woman gripped the tasers and sent shocks down each of the lines. Loghain’s body jerked again. Solas lay pale and still, eyes glazed over as if he had fainted. Cole winced.

Recklessly, and to Ellen’s growing horror, Hawke taunted Cole: “Go on, then… shoot. You know what my friend did to these? Dead woman’s handles. Explain to El Antiguo how you killed his best agents.”

“Then… then I’ll kill _her_ ,” said Cole. He turned to Ellen, who froze.

“When El Junioro took all that trouble to get her here alive?” Hawke laughed unkindly. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“I will… I’ll do it…”

Ellen stared at the gun. A cool, detached part of her mind was able to recognise that, unlike his voice, Cole’s hands weren’t shaking. His weapon was trained carefully at… no, not _at_ her. At a point just to the left of her.

And then he shot… and the bullet went through the other metal trident. Glass splintered. She screamed.

Hawke winked at Ellen, then put a finger to her lips. Then she let out a long low whistle, and swore. “Shit! You bastards, I didn’t think you’d actually kill her. Hey!”

Loghain let out a groan from the floor, just as a voice from the tannoys roared. “Get the tasers off her, Cole!”

Silently passing the gun back to Loghain, Cole ran across towards Hawke, a faint smile on his lips. He stood beside her, eerily smart in his dark grey uniform, watching as she retracted the wires. “Got them!” he called.

Loghain had sat up and shoved the gun in a holster on his belt, and now he rubbed his arms and legs.

“Let’s get her out of here,” he said to Cole. But they were all looking at Solas, laid out on the floor. Loghain put a hand round his wrist, and whatever pulse he felt seemed to comfort him, for he ventured a reassuring smile at Ellen. It sat oddly on his tanned, scarred face, and so did the gesture he also made – a finger on the lips to her.

Little as she understood of what had just passed, she realised what he meant, and nodded. The place was bugged; they were acting out a drama for someone’s benefit? The tannoy had fallen eerily silent.

“Nice shot…” said Hawke, reverting to the same cheerfully sarcastic tone she’d used before. “The servants will be cleaning the blood off the walls all week. Oi, where are you taking me?”

“Back to your room, Miss Hawke,” said Loghain. His accent was English, public school like Robert’s. “To contemplate the punishment you deserve for getting El Antiguo’s newest acquisition killed.”

“That was your fault!” cried Hawke, still acting her part. With quiet poise, she stowed the tasers in her belt and walked across to Loghain with Cole. She let the young man lift Solas under the arms, and took his feet herself.  

At a sign from Hawke, Ellen slipped her shoes off. With her heels dangling from her left hand and the dagger more securely gripped in the other, she followed them carefully down the right-hand corridor, and through a door into a small office, as eccentrically decorated as the rest of the complex. There was a large wooden table in the centre of the room, its surface laid in an intricate marquetry veneer, a diamond on top of a rectangle.

Cole and Hawke laid Solas on the table while Loghain waited at the door. Ellen hovered uncertainly beside Cole, watching as he extracted a gun from Solas’ holster, checked it and slid it into his own belt. She laid the dagger on the table beside them and put her shoes back on, trying to breathe as slowly and quietly as she could.

“This room should be safe for now,” said Loghain quietly to Hawke. “Wait here while I get your short friend.”

As soon as the door had closed behind the pilot, Ellen felt Solas’ wrist. A faint pulse fluttered in it.

“Strange that he fainted,” said Marian Hawke, watching her closely. “I’ve never seen that reaction before.”

Ellen mouthed – _can I talk? –_ and when Hawke nodded, asked: “Which is this – Solas or Evan? Will he be ok?”

Hawke looked surprised. “Who’s Solas? I only know him as Evan.”

“They’re twins,” said Ellen. Beside her, Cole nodded, looking puzzled. “Identical. Evan fooled you once, Cole.”

“I know,” he sighed. “Rhys made me listen to the nice Sergeant. Evie, he called her. That was why I knew I had to come back here. This place is wrong. I made myself forget when I went away, but I know it shouldn’t be this.”

Hawke sank into a hard wooden chair, one of six matching chairs that squatted around the table as if each reserved for its own particular hooded maniac. Ellen wondered if her grandfather had designed them too, and watched as the woman ran a hand through her short dark hair. “He’ll come round soon,” she warned.

“Check his shoulder,” advised Ellen, her hands gripping the side of the table to steady herself. Cole nodded, biting his lip, and began to unbutton the shirt, starting just under the man’s chin. Sure enough, there was a scar there, from the old shoulder wound. Ellen felt furious. “How did he _get_ here? He was in England on Saturday.”

“He came on the flight with us,” said Cole, buttoning up the shirt again. “He was there before you, you didn’t see him. He said he hadn’t managed it this time. Robert was angry with him.”

Hawke had sat forward, a look of fierce concentration on her face. “Hadn’t managed what? Who is this man?”

Ellen frowned. “Solas is my boyfriend. He lives in England. If it’s him he’ll have a scar there from a wound he got from Robert Corey in February. Robert attacked him in my flat, then ran away. After that he was in hospital for three months, recovering from a coma that these people put him in. Why would he come here _voluntarily_?”

“He was pretending to be Evan,” said Cole, in such a dreamy singsong voice that it took Ellen a few moments to realise that he was stating a fact rather than a hypothesis.

“On the flight… you mean on the flight?”

“Yes. Robert called him Evan. He answered.” Cole looked anxious, and gestured down at the table. “I hate this place. It should be like home, but it’s not. _He_ understands. Solas. Alone, yet unafraid. I wish he hadn’t come.”

“That’s why he had the odd reaction to the taser,” said Hawke, looking contrite. “The coma… right?”

“I assume so,” said Ellen, linking her fingers into Solas’ hand. She forced herself to suppress the memories that threatened to engulf her. _Time to be generous._ “You weren’t to know, Hawke. How did you plan this?”

“Loghain works with me. We waited for the Coreys to hire a new pilot, and got him into the job.”

“And who do you both work for?” asked Ellen quietly, determinedly not looking down at Solas’ face.

Hawke ignored the question. “Loghain vouched for Cole… and Evan. Said the man was looking for a way out, and would fall in line if the right opportunity presented itself.”

Ellen contemplated this. Was it possible that Evan’s mission had been to trade places with Solas again, and that the twins had colluded to pretend that I _hadn’t_ succeeded, when actually it had? But… why? Swallowing her fears, she was about to put this into words when Loghain returned, accompanied by a sweaty, dishevelled man who she immediately recognised as Varric. Thinner, wearier, and angrier – but definitely Varric.

“Anybody else vote that we never come here again?” he grumbled, but his eyes softened when he looked at Hawke. “Now there’s a sight for sore eyes. Hawke… what’s the plan?”

“They’ll be here within five minutes,” said Hawke, pursing her lips. Loghain shook his head, and held up three fingers. “Make that three. Last part is the hardest. Can’t get to the plane without confronting the old guy.”

“No, no no no no,” said Cole. He paced around in circles. “It’s brighter there. I can’t. I said I could, but I can’t!”

Varric walked across to put a hand on Cole’s shoulder. “How are you feeling, kid?”

“He died, and then he didn’t. There’s two of them. Two twos are four. Four fours sixteen. I don’t like seventeen.”

The hand in Ellen’s twitched, and she looked down at her boyfriend’s face. “Solas?” she asked, gently.

“Solas?!” asked Loghain of Hawke. He rubbed a hand over the five o’clock stubble developing on his chin.

“Evan’s twin. He’s on our side. Apparently,” said Hawke, wrinkling her nose.

Varric’s eyes had widened. “Solas – Merrill mentioned someone of that name. Is he the Welsh dresser?”

“Welsh **hair** dresser,” said Ellen, rolling her eyes. She leant forward. Solas was trying to say something. “What?”

“Hair _stylist,_ ” muttered Solas, opening his eyes at last. He pushed himself up on to his elbows, and looked around until he found Cole, sunk to a crouch in the corner. “Cole. You can. We’ll get you out of here soon.”

“Solas, are you all right?” asked Ellen urgently, squeezing Solas’ hand. “We need to go. Can you walk?”

He turned to smile weakly up at her, his blue eyes gleaming with what she decided was unreasonable excitement. “ _Lo siento, corazón_.” _I’m sorry, my heart._ Rejecting Ellen’s help, he got unsteadily to his feet, towering over her once more, and took a deep breath. “I suspect you have questions. But they must wait.”

Ellen picked up the dagger again. “We need to get out of here. How do we get to the plane?”

“It’s on the roof,” explained Loghain. If she closed her eyes she could imagine him as Bond, all plummy vowels and condescension. “I closed all of the side routes, but we’ll have to fight our way out. They’ll be here…” The door slid open, activated by some remote override that seemed, when they ventured outside, to have opened every door in the complex. Ellen began to hear strange chittering noises behind them.

“Wrong, wrong, wrong,” moaned Cole. “Feeding on the bits it leaves behind.”

“What _it_?” asked Varric, still with a hand on his shoulder. “Come on, kid. Let’s get moving.”

Cole had stopped to kneel down in the middle of the corridor. “Don’t stop!” cried Loghain, glaring at him.

As he said that, Ellen saw them come out, scuttling from pipes that opened low down in the corridor walls, from ravens’ beaks and screaming portraits. Spiders. Hundreds of spiders, with hairy legs and fangs. Varric dragged Cole to his feet, and they all began to run, except Solas, who grabbed something from his pocket, and, turning, threw it backwards along the corridor. The resulting explosion left them deafened, and the spiders fleeing.

“Nice,” said Hawke, with an appreciative grin, as Ellen reeled. “I guess you _are_ on our side… for the moment.”

  



	24. Iridescence

Hurrying in case of further traps, Loghain led them through a bewildering series of store rooms and corridors, the forgotten, deserted basements of the complex. Each was carved into the same rough grey stone as if by water over centuries. They emerged at last into a large subterranean cave, with glittering stalactites and stalagmites and a roaring waterfall, illuminated in crimson, white and pale green by hidden lights. Ellen paused for a moment on the threshold, amazed by the scale and grandeur of the place.

Solas had stopped to look up at the roof of the cave a hundred feet above them, and Ellen stumbled into him. “This is incredible,” he said to her, his eyes wide, his voice high with excitement. “I never dared hope I would see this in person. The iridescent colours… the velvet dark! Listen! You can hear the bats squeaking!”

Loghain turned around to glare at him. “Focus, man! We must get underneath the falls.”

Swallowing his pride, Solas bit down whatever retort he had been about to make, and strode on after the pilot.

As she picked her slow way after him, Varric came up behind her, trailed by a silent, unhappy Cole. “Here,” he said, offering up an arm. “Those red shoes of yours look about as suitable for this place as a knife in a gun fight.”

“I’ve got that too,” said Ellen, showing him the dagger she still carried in her hand.

“That’ll teach me to use a cliché,” sighed the author, as they followed Solas up a steep incline. “Mind you, not sure this really is a gun fight. Seems more like a battle of wits to me, and you’ve got that covered.”

Varric beamed up at her, and Ellen managed a weak smile in return, trying to feel comforted by his intent.

After a minute or so they caught up with Solas and Loghain, and once more there was a surprising feature that jolted her out of her morbid thoughts. Underneath the waterfall, a large square alcove had been carved into the rock, crimson-lit, with a smooth ledge running around the three internal sides. It was clearly intended as a seat.

More than that, she knew she’d seen it before. “Is déjà vu a thing?” she asked Varric, before sinking gratefully on to the rocky ledge, next to Solas, who was staring into space through the falls. _Did my grandfather make this?_

In the circumstances it hardly mattered, as Ellen contemplated swollen feet and dirtied dress. Compared to the rest of them, she was a scruffy mess. Solas, Loghain and Cole were smart in their bad-guy grey uniforms, Hawke was impossibly bad-ass in her bulletproof vest and black trousers, and even Varric managed to make his brand of bling work, with brass hoops in his ears and a red cloth knotted round his neck above a loud Hawaiian shirt.

“I don’t suppose they have a spare uniform?” she muttered to Solas. “These shoes are killing me.”

Solas still looked put out, the angry pink of his cheeks reddened further by the lighting in the nook. Yet at her words he turned to her with sudden concern, as if regretting his selfishness. He placed his right hand on her empty left one: interlinking fingers; squeezing gently. “Ana and your friends are safe. Brassard is with them.”

The words had been spoken so quietly Ellen almost thought she’d imagined them. When she realised she hadn’t, she simply stared at him for a moment, dizzy with relief. Then she whispered back: “How do you know?”

Unfortunately, before he could respond, Hawke reached them, and sat down with a thump. “I pulled the lever,” she said to Loghain, pointing to where they’d entered. “You said that would give us fifteen minutes here?”

Loghain nodded. “We have to talk.” He turned to Solas, his lips thinning in exasperation. “Who _are_ you?”

Solas abruptly removed his hand from Ellen’s and clenched it into a fist on his knee. “I might ask you the same myself,” he retorted, “since you didn’t warn me about your friend here with the tasers.”

“That’s a good point, actually,” said Varric. “Why didn’t you?”

“I was hoping to reach the safe room before Hawke found us,” admitted Loghain, scowling at the ground. Then he straightened, and held out his hand to Solas. “My name is Loghain Mac Tíre. I apologise for what happened.”

Varric leant forward. “Loghain’s not your surname, then? Mac Cheera? That’s a mouthful.”

“M-a-c space capital T-i-r-e,” said Hawke, rattling off the letters as quickly as Briala sent snarky texts on her phone, and with equal indifference. “An acute mark over the i, like in French in café. And no-one can pronounce it right. That’s why he goes by Loghain. He’s almost as obsessive about that as I am about Hawke-with-an-e.”

“A _síneadh fada_ ,” said Solas. The heat of his rage had subsided, leaving a façade of amusement over irritation. “I spent some time in Ireland once,” he explained vaguely, and to Ellen’s surprise. _I didn’t know that._

“My name is Solas Harrell,” he continued, accepting the hand that Loghain still held out, and holding it firmly in his grasp for a moment. As Loghain sat back with a curt nod, he added: “I am Evan’s twin brother. My deception was necessary; Corey would have killed me if he had found out. I accept your apology, Mr… Wolf.”

“Mac Tíre means wolf?!” asked Hawke. She punched Loghain’s shoulder. “You never told me that!”

The clock was ticking, and Ellen had had enough of their banter. “We don’t have time for this,” she said, by some miracle keeping her voice steady and firm. It was annoying enough looking like the token helpless female in her red weather girl dress and the heels Gaspard had picked out for her; she didn’t need to sound weak too.

“You are right,” said Solas, with an approving glance at her that was somehow even more infuriating.

“Hawke,” said Ellen, before her boyfriend could speak again: “You brought me here. What did you plan next?”

Marian Hawke stopped pummelling her colleague, and jabbed a finger in the air at Solas. “Well, let me see. Plan A depended on our persuading Evan to our side. _He_ was in the old guy’s security detail. _He_ knew the access codes to their sanctum. As I said, that’s where the Coreys’ plane is – and that’s our only means of escape, unless we fancy trekking for weeks through jungle. I don’t suppose _you_ know the codes, twin brother Solas?”

“No,” said Solas. He added, with equal blandness: “What was your Plan B?”

“Persuade someone else to let us in, of course,” said Hawke, rolling her eyes. “Who was next on our list, Wolfy?”

Loghain had been lost in thought for some moments, staring at the roof. He ignored Hawke’s question, and said instead to Solas: “You said your name was Harrell. But I am sure that Evan did not go by that name.”

“He once did,” said Solas, with an edged smile. “Evan decided to change his surname to our stepfather’s when our surname became notorious in this part of the world. An eco-anarchist styling himself the Wolf.”

Hawke laughed. “You’re not suggesting that _Loghain_ is an anarchist? A man more devoted to the crown…”

“I’ve heard of the Wolf,” said Ellen, suddenly remembering. “When I was growing up. My grandmother used to swear about him. She said… she said that we’d lost everything because of him! Because the Wolf fought for his cause so fiercely. I don’t think I ever heard her mention his name…” She trailed off, thinking: _surname. Harrell._

Loghain let out a bark of laughter. “The older servants still whisper his name here, when they think the Coreys are not watching. I thought Fen’Harel was an urban myth!”

A flash of some strange emotion crossed Solas’ face. He shook his head slowly. “Neither urban, nor a myth.”

“Fen’Harel…” mused Varric, frowning: “Fen Harrell… Evan Harrell! Your twin was the Wolf?”

“Not quite,” said Solas. He frowned. “If the servants remember… it may provide a solution to our difficulties.”

“ _You_ don’t seem to shun the connection,” said Hawke to Solas, narrowing her eyes, “since you brought it up.”

Solas sighed, and took up Ellen’s hand again. He seemed so suddenly serious and grave that she almost forgot the others around them, this cavern, and their situation – many thousands of miles from home. “I had meant to tell you many months ago, _corazón_. On that fateful night in February. But we were interrupted.”

A shiver ran down Ellen’s spine. “Tell me… what, Solas?”

“I lost my nerve… and then, my memory. My middle name is Ffen. Solas Ffen Harrell. _I_ am the Wolf.”

“You are…” said Ellen, meeting his cold blue gaze, “…not _were_?”

Deep layers of ice above a chilly sea, and even the humid warmth of the cavern couldn’t melt him. “I am needed here,” he stated, then added, scarcely meeting her eyes: “I may not return with you to England.”

Sinking into frozen deeps, and numb with shock. “Wait… what?!” she whispered.

“We must focus all our efforts on stopping them,” insisted Solas. He dropped her hand and turned to the others, his voice swelling with passion. “If we fail here, nothing else matters. We must offer a message of hope and solidarity, a vision of a better Earth… economic, social, environmental justice. The Coreys represent all that is wrong in this world: the cult and dictatorship of money. Even the Church understands that! _It is time, Cole._ ”

Cole was stood staring through the waterfall, a dark grey still and silent shadow. Now he turned, his pale face anguished, one shaking hand raised to point at Solas: “You killed the spiders!” he cried.

“Regrettable but necessary,” said Solas, firmly, closing his eyes for a moment as if blinded by the memory of the explosion. “Venezuelan suntiger venom is potent. A few were caught in the blast. The majority will have fled.”

“Are you an expert on everything?” asked Hawke, her voice dripping with sarcasm. Solas ignored her.

Anger was rising like a geyser in Ellen’s chest. “Can everyone _please_ focus on what matters?”

Loghain shot her a sympathetic glance. “If we are careful,” he said to Solas, barely hiding his exasperation, “the Coreys might still think you _are_ your brother. Could you use that to find out the codes?”

“A risky strategy,” said Solas, shaking his head. He nodded sagely, leaning back with his hands in his pockets. “I think it preferable to call the British police.”

Hawke snorted derisively. “By the time they get here… we could be dead! Besides, we don’t have a…”

Solas held a hand up. In it was a small, and very high-spec, phone. “Assuming your tasers haven’t ruined the electronics… ah, no, that’s good… the British police arrested my twin. They are holding him in custody.”

“Ah… that’s how you knew,” said Varric. They all looked at him, awaiting explanation. He spread his hands expansively. “He had to know which plane to get. He must have been in contact with somebody who knew.”

“Wait,” said Ellen. “If they arrested your twin, then when did they know about my abduction?”

“Florianne overreached herself,” said Solas. “As she made her move against Celene, Briala escaped and gave the warning. When they arrested Florianne an hour later – insanely frothing – she spoke of a meeting she’d had with Evan that morning. Knowing he had been in the city, they tracked him down by mid-afternoon.”

“That’s fast,” put in Hawke. She sounded surprised.

“She also told them that you would be on a flight leaving from a beach on an island somewhere to the west. Apparently, she couldn’t remember the name. Evan… when they finally let me talk to him… was more specific.”

“I thought you weren’t on speaking terms,” said Ellen faintly.

“Shouting terms might be more accurate. I forced him to confront what he had done, that you were blameless.”

He trailed off, frowning down at the phone. “There’s more, isn’t there?” asked Ellen.

“Yes,” said Solas, meeting her eyes apologetically, “but we are running out of time. Suffice to say, they got me here… with this. What codes or other information do we need?” Loghain explained again, and Solas nodded. “Then I will need to get somewhere where this has reception. Ought I to go alone, or take somebody with me?”

“We pretended Ellen was shot,” said Hawke. “Perhaps, while Loghain “took me to my room”, you doubled back to retrieve her body, but found her alive. Clearly, I overpowered both Loghain and Cole and escaped, taking the keys to Varric’s cell. Currently, he and I are on the loose, and Cole and Loghain are tied up somewhere.”

“Keycard,” corrected Loghain, rolling his eyes. “Marian… we can’t duplicate a shot wound. Wait… _tied_ up?”

“Didn’t you see that ball of twine we passed, in the last storeroom but one?” quipped Varric.

  



	25. Lull

The complex was as confusing as it was awe-inspiring, a terrible topography of caves and corridors, statues and storerooms. Ellen crept along after Solas, her shoes in her hand once more, her eyes fixed on the silent directions that he gave her with his hands behind his back – towards the left, towards the right, stay down.

Now he was instructing her to follow him up the stairs towards the turning on the left. Ellen obeyed as quietly as she could. His conviction that Ana was protected meant she could focus entirely on her situation here… and on getting back to her daughter and her country as fast as possible.

And focus was needed, if only not to throttle Solas and demand more answers. _I may not return…_

Her shoulder brushed against vines, hanging down beside the wall, and she stepped hastily away from them, heart pounding. Vines (or those metal ducts above) might conceal more bugs – or audio receptors, as Loghain put it. He’d confirmed what she’d just about managed to work out for herself: that they believed they’d taken out the visuals of the Coreys’ surveillance system in the areas they’d passed through, but couldn’t be sure they’d disabled all the audio receptors. Hence the need to talk under the waterfall, where the smooth stone had been easier for Loghain to check, and where the noise of the falls would interfere with any receptors further away.

To her surprise, and intense relief, the group had settled their plan without more delay. Cole would make it look as if the lock on Varric’s door had been overridden from the inside, and Loghain tied up in a dead-end corridor nearby. Hawke and Varric would find somewhere to hide. Cole would raise the alarm to help allay suspicions of himself and Loghain. Solas and Ellen would first make for a secret room Cole knew, unknown even to the Coreys. In an hour, Cole would come to find her, and Solas would seek somewhere that he might contact Cassandra.

She’d reached the turning, and glimpsed Solas beckoning her on again, through the dimness to an opening partly concealed by vines. Through it another surprise awaited her: a room and not a corridor. A small room at that, with grey stone walls carved crudely into the rock, and no obvious exits through any of them. Her companion was kneeling on the floor, inspecting the dark grey flagstones.  As she entered, he looked up, a finger to his lips.

Ellen watched impatiently with narrowed eyes as he levered the dagger she had given him into a gap between two of the stones. The stones dropped slightly, then slid smoothly, one to each side – the ones flanking them must have had their central sections hollowed – to reveal a ladder leading down to blackness, just as Cole had said when they’d settled on their plan. Solas wasted no time, but stuck the dagger in his belt and grasped the ladder with both hands, testing it would hold his weight. Seemingly satisfied, he sat on the ground and dropped his feet into the hole, then began to descend the ladder. Ellen held her breath, counting the seconds in rungs.

After thirty seconds, and just as she was wondering if she ought to follow him, she heard him returning up again. This time he beckoned her close so he could whisper in her ear. “It’s as they said. Black marble, with square windows where the light comes through. Twelve rungs of the ladder, then a larger step down on to the floor.”  

Ellen nodded, biting her lip. Her useless shoes were still in her hands, until Solas reached for them, thrusting them into each of his trouser pockets until only the long stiletto heels were visible. Somehow she got herself onto and down the ladder, rung to chilly rung, and hoping her eyes would adjust to the growing dark.

_Eleven, twelve… the larger step._ On the ground. Ellen shivered. This place was like a black marble fridge – an oubliette, twenty foot high and twelve foot square, its only furniture an intricately carved wooden chest and a tall mirror in a gilded frame, leaning against the wall. And Solas had been right to remark on those square windows. A strange diffuse white light was glowing through them, with no discernible source. Above, the muted grey light disappeared as Solas activated the mechanism that slid the stones back together.

She hoped it worked from both sides. 

Something else was wrong here, something important… but what? Before she could do any more than record that intuition, footsteps sounded on the rungs, boots on metal – and Solas was standing, towering, over her, illuminated from one side only by the eerie light. A half-face that she knew; a shadowed face she knew not. 

His finger pressed against her lips, the familiar faint herbal scent frustratingly intoxicating.

That slight touch, tender and restraining at the same time, tipped her over the edge. She wanted to bite his finger… and to lick it. She wanted to scream and swear, break off whatever thing it was they’d had, and throw herself into his arms, all at once. But Solas was already gone, was striding around the room, feeling the walls, peering through the windows. Eventually he nodded as if satisfied, and returned to stand in front of her.

“We can talk,” he confirmed. His hands were behind his back, his posture defensive… yet a faint smile touched his lips. “This place is… fascinating. It is not the way I would have chosen to explore it, of course, but…”

He broke off, as if belatedly conscious of the storm about to break upon him.

Ellen held his gaze for a long moment, before looking away, staring out of the blank white window. No raindrops here, nor would she let herself cry. Instead, she glared right back at him. “I’m done with this. With you.”

His eyes widened in shock, and even in this light she could see his pale skin blanch. “What do you mean?”

“What I said. I don’t need someone in my life – in Ana’s life – who can’t be honest with me!”

“I apologise. I ought to have told you earlier. My memory…”

“Your coma – as I recall! – only affected your memories of February. Not everything before. All those times I visited you… I cared for you… I thought that you might actually stay with me… and help with Ana! Be a father to her. All the things that Robert never had been. I loved you, Solas!”

She was shaking with anger, choking back sobs. Solas took a step towards her, then faltered as Ellen struck her hands against his chest. Her bare feet were planted firmly on the floor. She had to keep him away.

He was saying something, but she couldn’t hear it over the rushing in her ears. Her hands were flat against his chest, cold against its warmth, her muscles straining as she tried to shift him, move him back away from her.

“Just get me out of here!” she screamed. “Then I never want to see you or your twin again!”

Her final shove was stronger, harder – and Solas stumbled back against the wall, narrowly avoiding the mirror. She couldn’t push him through the wall, and instead her blows rained heavily on his uniform shirt, just like Sour and Crewcut had worn, and Robert Corey. Terror seized her, and suddenly her legs gave way. She sank to the floor, bare knees on the shimmering marble tiles, shuddering violently.

For a minute she simply sobbed into her hands, and was grateful he had the sense not to attempt to comfort her by word or deed. Instead, she heard a metallic grating sound – something turning in a lock. Assuming it was the chest, she didn’t raise her head – Cole had given Solas the key, there was food in there, he’d said. Remembering their peril, and their plans, she tried to gain control of her emotions and her breathing.

Beside her, Solas coughed. “Ellen… I… please, take this.” It was a handkerchief, a plain white square of cotton.

She took the cloth and raised red-rimmed eyes to thank him, and found as she blew her nose that his own cheeks were streaked with tears as well, his expression anguished. “Why did you tell me now?”

“Would it have been better if I’d never said goodbye?” he said, his voice harsh. “What we had was _real_.”

“You meant to stay with me?”

“I never should have encouraged it,” he said. The ice in his voice was back, a cold sharp barrier that fell between them. Even his sigh was like a blast of arctic wind. “I realised… after we had lunch with Ana and your friends…”

“They’re your friends too,” snapped Ellen. “So if you had decided then, why didn’t you call me?”

“Because I _hadn’t_ decided! _Please_ …” – icicles shattering, his voice a cadence of snowflakes – “…let me finish.”

She shivered, but nodded. “Since I am stuck here with you for now,” she said, blowing her nose again, and tossing the ruined cloth on the floor for want of sleeves or rubbish bin: “I guess that we have time.”

Solas inclined his head, in silent, painful acquiescence. He had removed her shoes from his trousers, and now laid them neatly beside her, crimson toes pointing to the mirror. Now he picked up the hanky, and tidied it into his pocket, before standing up and walking towards the chest. “Come – the chest will make a seat.”

There was a bottle of water by it, and a battered biscuit tin. Gathering her dignity, she got up and joined him.

The chest was large enough to act as a seat for both of them, though given her recent outburst she would have preferred that their thighs were not quite so close to touching. For all she hated him right now, she couldn’t drive the thought away that what she wanted most was to be held. Damn pheromones.

She moved away, trying to sit at the very edge of comfort. Trying not to breathe his scent in. _Damn._

Of course, he noticed. “Would you prefer that I stood?” he asked. The gentleness in his voice surprised her.

Ellen took a breath, and shook her head. There was no need for her to be ungenerous. “I’m sorry.”

“For many years…” he began, then trailed off, swallowed, and started afresh. “As a teen in Wales, I wanted to study chemical engineering. Like my father. I thought that if I worked for an oil company, I could change them from the inside. Use their wealth for the good of the poorest, for the good of those whose lands they craved.”

“Like your father?”

“A country’s oil belongs to its citizens. Venezuela produces more than two million barrels of oil per day, twice as much as the United Kingdom. Spent well, the money from its exports can transform a nation.” He was warming to his theme, and absently reached out for her hand, but drew back just in time. “But as I listened to the news, to friends at university… I heard of climate change… modern slavery… destruction of the rainforests… Six thousand acres every hour: gone. Dozens of species extinct each day. I knew I couldn’t not act on it all.”

“I know,” said Ellen, grimacing. “You know I care about that too! When did you become the Wolf? And… why?”

“My grandfather died. We’d been close. My father and I were both grieving, and angry with each other. Soon after, I heard from my stepfather that my mother had been killed. I was estranged from Evan. I… was not in a good place at the time. I joined my share of causes – chained myself to trees, organised petitions, marches, got arrested, changed to biochemistry – and studied through the nights to make sure that I didn’t fail my course.”

Solas sighed, stood, strode over to a window. After a moment he continued: “I _did_ graduate. Then I came to Venezuela. I wanted to see the worst of it for myself. While I was here, my father died – still angry I’d gone off the rails, but lacking the skills to deal with it. Rhys wrote that he had left the farm to Evan. Something in me snapped. I used the skills I’d learnt – took on an alter ego, became the Wolf – to raise… well, an army, I suppose. Guerillas to protect the forest. Anyone started logging it, or got in our way, we’d k… fight them.”

“You killed people,” said Ellen, startled. Then she remembered something: “That’s why the police were coy about your record. I thought they acted oddly about it. But why did Evie never warn me about you?”

“My misdemeanours in England were just that – cautions, fines, the antics of a student activist. Fen’Harel’s work lay outside of their jurisdiction.” Solas pressed his lips together. “But now that they have Evan… they will know.”

Ellen took a shaky breath. “Why did you stop?”

“It became impossible to prevent the group becoming imbroiled in politics. That was not my motivation. I… left here, and travelled. To other countries. Joining… creating… other causes. Evil transcends national…”

A shuffling sound above them. Dull grey light. Solas broke off abruptly, and they both held their breaths. _Too soon for Cole_ , thought Ellen in despair, and as the smart shoes came down the ladder, knew that she was right.

“Solas, you sly dog,” cried Robert’s hateful voice. “I choked it out of Cole that you were here with Ellie.”

In a flash of Robert’s torch, Solas’ mannerisms changed. A lewd grin swept across his face. “She’s all yours.”

  



	26. Oppressive

Ellen shrank back, hands gripping the chest. That old nickname _Ellie_ brought back relentless memories of a false Robert Corey that she knew was gone, even if this man remained alive. No-one else had ever called her Ellie.

From the angle of the torch, Ellen guessed that Robert had remained standing on the rungs of the ladder. Still trying to make himself seem even taller than he already was. In the bright circle of torchlight, Solas’ face was equally fake, and feigning an amusement she was sure he did not feel. Their posturing reminded her – in the strangest way – of academic scientists arguing opposing views at conferences: a condescending disrespect as sharp as knives. Dorian Pavus had taught her not to fear it, but to use it to her advantage.

 _Attitude, knowledge, weapons._ That’s what Evie had drummed into her, in those informal self-defence lessons sitting at Solas’ bedside. The first step was not to see herself as someone else’s pawn. She took a breath and unpawned herself by forcing her body to appear relaxed: if Robert had wanted her dead he would have had plenty of time to arrange for it on the plane. Previously he’d tried blackmailing her to get the deeds – but they were safe in England. What was it now? To sign something? She would have to be brave.

Robert swung his torch around, shining it in her face to dazzle her, then dipping down over her body, lingering  deliberately on her chest. “You were better looking when you were eighteen, Ellie,” he said. “Still… nice tits.”

He wasn’t even troubling to be nice now, and she decided, in a white hot blaze of anger, that she preferred it that way. There was no need to be conflicted, she could simply hate him.

“Did you bring me here just to insult me?” she snapped back at him, shifting sideways out of the spotlight.

“No,” he sighed. “I came to offer you a choice.”

“What kind of choice?” asked Ellen, each word a heavy weight in her mouth.

“My father is… not the most sane of individuals. Already his men are searching the complex for you. If they find you they will compel you to participate in films of his devising.”

Solas’ voice came sharp and cold from the dark, an icy lash. “What _kind_ of films?”

“Like the one I made available to Ellie. A warning not to interfere.”

“I was going to tell you,” said Ellen, shakily, in the direction of Solas’ voice. The torchlight reflected off the mirror, illuminating a pool of marble tiles. No escape through there. “He tried to blackmail me into giving him the papers by threatening to release a video of him and me… in bed. From years ago.”

She heard the sharp intake of breath, and knew that Solas was even angrier than she was. “You said a _choice_ ,” he snarled, unflinching even as Robert flicked the torch up to his face. “What is your alternative?”

Robert stepped down from the ladder, his footsteps tapping smartly on the tiles. “Remember your role in this,” he warned softly. “You have chosen your path already.”

Ellen’s head thumped painfully. Did Robert still believe that Solas was Evan, _pretending_ to be himself? For all her fury at Solas, she didn’t think he’d lied to her just now. Solas himself remained silent, and she wondered if he was calculating just as hard as she was. He nodded, once, his lips tightly pressed together.

The other man paused a few feet in front of Solas, the lowest ladder rungs descending from the ceiling between them. Robert’s torch was trained on Solas’ face still, the shadowy gun in his other hand just illuminated by a shaft of diffuse light from the windows. “Do you remember Abelas?”

Solas nodded again. “I left him in charge in this region,” he added, presumably for Ellen’s benefit.

“You chose well,” said Robert, with terse approval. “He has bolstered the numbers of the resistance beyond what we can now subdue. He threatens to cut our water supply. Only Ellen can persuade him to leave us alone.”

This whole development was… bizarre, to say the least. “Why me?”

“Abelas served your grandfather. Only you can persuade him you have the right to decide what happens here.”

Maybe Robert had gone mad like his father. “Why can’t Solas persuade him?”

“We did not part on the best of terms,” said Solas, frowning deeply.

Ellen sighed. No help from that quarter then; or at least: not yet _._ It might be that her best option lay with accepting Robert’s offer. “How do I persuade this Abelas?” she asked, then added: “And if I did, what then?”

“You only have to talk to him, Ellie,” said Robert, in that reasonable tone he’d used so many times in the past. “And if you succeed in helping me, I will return you to England… to Ana… before my father’s men can find you. When you disappeared from your room, I was worried they would find you first. I had persuaded Erimond to let you sleep after the journey, in the hope that we could speak soon after you woke.”

“Was he on the flight?” asked Ellen, wondering if Erimond was Crewcut’s name. Sour was Samson.

Robert hummed slightly, turning the torch around to her again. She blinked, and tried to look compliant. “You haven’t met him, Ellie. Dark, tall, with a permanent sneering expression. Don’t expect any sympathy.”

Solas’ eyes widened. “Wait. Is that the same Erimond we knew? Oliver, Olivius, some such name?”

“Of course you know him, E…” snapped Robert, then got himself under control. “E… Erimond’s father was a professor of Roman history. Called his son Livius. He’s my father’s right-hand man, now.”

So the mask was not as fixed as it appeared, and Robert could be riled. Was that Solas’ intention? There was some kind of maze here, and she would follow his lead. For now.

“How did you know him, Solas?” asked Ellen, adding innocently: “Were you all at school together?”

In the darkness beyond the torch, she heard a faint chuckle. “Do I sound like an English public schoolboy?”

Her former fiancé also laughed, at that, but the sound was far less reassuring. “Your school,” he shot at Solas, “was barely worth the name. Or the fees your father paid for it. Or _didn’t_ pay.”

“Leave my father out of this,” said Solas, the ice returning to his voice. “Are we really going to reminisce about old school rugby fixtures? Or are we going to get Ellen away from _your_ father’s men like we planned?”

Robert chose to ignore the last part. “Did you know he used to play rugby, Ellie?”

“He’s Welsh,” she said, evading the question. Honestly, it had never come up. Rugby was a Welsh thing, right?

“Indeed,” said Solas. “Robert will remember how I got this scar upon my forehead.”

“That scar… oh! Has it not healed yet?” Perhaps unwisely, Robert shone the torch full on Solas.

“No, the force with which you stamped rendered it permanent,” said Solas, his lips twisting.

He raised the dagger Ellen had given him in one hand, its blade reflecting the light, and smiled calmly at the man with the gun in front of him. As he did so, Ellen heard the faintest sound of movement on the upper rungs of the ladder. Surely no-one in league with Robert would need to use subterfuge? Was it one of their allies? Those rungs were shrouded in darkness, but the lowest ones were illuminated. Silently, she picked up her shoes, one in each clammy hand. Their heels weren’t sharp, but it was better than nothing.

Robert was growing angry. “Ev…en you should know better than to wave that at me,” he warned, his voice pitching higher. “Don’t threaten me. I have a gun! Cole showed me he had taken yours!”

Solas was playing with fire. He must know Robert’s temper made him reckless. She had to do something.

“ _You_ stamped on his head?” cried Ellen, determined to make him turn towards her. She stood up for the first time, remembering to keep her body sideways on towards him, making herself a smaller target, and began to move silently on bare feet across the floor, gripping the heels of her shoes. “But then, you did also stab him _in my flat_. My flat that you put under surveillance. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.”

Robert stepped forward in front of the ladder, the torchbeam darting between her and Solas. “Watch your tongue, bitch! The surveillance wasn’t my idea! That was all my father! Stay where you are!”

“Yes, stay where you are,” said Solas. He sounded worried. “Corey, she agreed to talk to Abelas. Let her try.”

Ellen bit back her fury and fear, and waited, heart hammering. Her legs felt like jelly.

“Just stay there, Ellie,” cried Robert. “You know what happens to girls who don’t follow orders!”

Something slid down the darkness, right behind Robert, and yanked his body backwards. At the same time, Solas leapt out of the torch’s light. A gunshot rang out, there was a loud thump on the floor, and Robert also yelled out in pain, swearing. The torch span across the floor. Too shocked to scream, unarmed, and unable to see what was going on in the scuffle, Ellen dove back and for the floor behind the chest – it was closer than the mirror.

Some time later – a few seconds, or a minute, as her pulse hammered in her veins – it all fell silent. A tang of blood was in the air, and Ellen dared to peep up and around the chest. A hand had picked up the torch, and shone it down on… on Robert’s body, lying in a corner. Cole crouched beside it, his hands and the knives held in them covered with crimson blood. A dark pool was spreading across the tiles.

Her instinctive feeling was one of guilty relief. _I don’t have to tell Ana that her father is alive._

And then, revulsion. _He’s gone. They killed him._

“He’s dead,” said Solas, echoing her thoughts. She guessed it was for her own benefit, to say it out loud. He played the torch over the room, and Ellen blinked as it caught her face. Scarcely realising what she was about, she crammed her feet back into her shoes. He strode across to her, crouching down nearby: “Are you hurt?”

“No,” said Ellen. It was all she could manage to say. She tried to breathe slowly, to slow her pounding heart.

“I am relieved,” said Solas. Then he pushed himself up to his feet, and shone the torch back across the room. Ellen could feel him wince. “We must get out of here immediately. Your intervention was… unexpected, Cole.”

Cole shook his head at the body. “He was going to… they were going to… Erimond will be here soon! I couldn’t let you kill Mr Corey. Miss Lavellan would never be with you if you did, you said that! But someone had to!”

“Action is not always preferable to inaction, Cole,” said Solas. “Ellen, again… I am sorry. I had hoped… well…”

She couldn’t let him wallow in whatever complex feelings he was indulging. It wasn’t the time. There wasn’t time. She stood. “I believed Robert was dead for years,” said Ellen, curtly, “and now he is. What now?”

“Up the ladder. The sooner we are away from here the better,” said Solas. He laid the torch on the floor, then bent to open the chest. Retrieving some ancient napkins and a heavy tablecloth, he carried them across.

“Clean yourself,” he advised Cole, passing him a napkin. “Are those knives traceable? If not, leave them.”

“No, I stole them from the kitchens,” said Cole. “They don’t run surveillance there. No-one knows I had them.”

“Good,” said Solas, placing the tablecloth over Robert’s body and the knives. “Ellen, please start climbing. I will be faster. I will be close behind you.”

She did as he asked, her hands slipping on the side rails of the ladder, balancing carefully on the balls of her feet. Halfway up she realised she had her shoes on, but it was too late to change that. She kept on climbing, and wondered how far behind her Solas was. At the top she scrambled out, and knelt down to peer into the dark shaft below. Yes – there he was, his trim figure ascending rapidly… twelve feet… ten feet down.

Then, out of nowhere, heavy footsteps were racing up the corridor. Towards this dead end. Acting on instinct, she slammed the trapdoor stones together, ignoring Solas’ look of horror just before they closed. _Save him!_

Barely ten seconds later, as she scrambled to her feet, three men entered the room. Their leader was a tall, dark man whose pale narrow eyes held no sympathy at all. _Robert never mentioned the moustache_ , she thought, as those same eyes lit up in triumph. “Good!” he sneered, turning to his men. “Now bind her just as I showed you.” 

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was painful to write - somehow the angst feels even worse when it's a modern Earth AU. Thanks to those who are persevering - I promise it improves!


	27. High

Ellen’s hands had been tied awkwardly behind her back, but so far her captors had ventured nothing worse. She’d been allowed to walk, with one of Erimond’s men on each side grasping an upper arm to prevent her escape. At least it was more dignified than being carried along these endless humid corridors and stairs, and she tried to draw herself up as proudly as she could in a dusty red dress and impractical heels. A cold dread had settled into her bones, and it was no use to try to imagine it as a weapon: ice magic wasn’t real.

Knives and guns were real, and so were the fists of these men who’d captured her, their fingers digging in to her arms. Their expressions were strangely blank, like screens with the power cut off. Having introduced himself with a mocking bow – _Lord Livius Erimond of Vernhampton, at your service_ – Erimond now strode ahead of them. He also seemed to have no interest in her beyond cargo to be shipped across the complex.

Was it only Robert who realised the connection to her grandfather, or her value to this unknown rebel Abelas?

Thinking of Robert made her want to retch, but she must not, must stay calm, must keep on going. The longer that Robert’s death remained a secret, the longer Solas and Cole would have to make their own escape. Ellen tried to focus instead on her surroundings, the fractured, surrealist geometry of this place: Abuelo Arturo’s vision. The technology was a strange mix of dated 1980s tech from the original complex and hidden, modern surveillance. Combined with the surrealist, faux-primitive art, it felt as if time itself had stopped.

Yet only Erimond had stopped, this time to bow to a carved statue – half-man, half-monster – whose muscled, contorted body rose twelve feet high and ended with a scream.

“Congratulations, Livius,” boomed the voice from a speaker in the statue. “I see you found Miss Lavellan.”

Erimond bowed his head briefly, in acceptance. “Did you doubt me?”

The voice ignored him. “Take her to the halls,” it commanded brusquely, “and join the search for the others.”

Ellen found herself being ushered again along another, larger, series of corridors. Their floors were set with small square yellow tiles, and clean water ran along channels on each side. Through narrow arched windows she could see and hear the magnificence of the forest outside. A tiny bird with a long blue-violet tail flew past. She was acutely jealous of its freedom, and forced herself to be glad that it, at least, was free.

They came to a heavy wooden door, embellished with wrought iron. Erimond waved a keycard at a sensor to the left, then punched in a code on the keypad to the right, his body shielding the digits pressed from view. When the door opened, all it revealed was a thick green velvet curtain, trimmed with gold.

“These are the halls,” said Erimond, his lip curling in a dismissive sneer. “You’d better get cleaned up.”

Apparently he and his men weren’t allowed beyond the curtain, because once they had taken her through the door they left abruptly, slamming the door behind her so forcefully it made her heart pound uncomfortably all over again. A gentle push confirmed her suspicion: it had locked automatically. _Where am I now?_  

A girlish laugh echoed from beyond the curtain, high and brittle. With shaking hands, Ellen gathered the edge of the curtain, and peeked around the edge, ready to draw her head back at the slightest danger.

Her jaw dropped open. She was standing on a balcony, with marble staircases leading down on either side. The halls below stretched out in front of her, a lovely chamber filled with gold and silks… and women.

Beautiful women. Women lying on couches, dressed in thigh-length silken robes, sipping from gold-banded glasses, their hands dipping into bowls of grapes, laughing and chattering. Dark-haired and blonde, pale skinned and Asian and dark, their skimpy robes a fluttering rainbow of peach and pink and lilac and indigo. And, strangest of all, each one was apparently happy. She had never seen so many beautiful women all in one place in her life. Celene would have been cast into the shade by these, and Florianne, and Vivienne as well.

“A magnificent sight, is it not?” came a voice at her elbow, and Ellen span around, instinctively letting the curtain fall back into place. She could have sworn there was no-one with her behind it, and that the heavy wooden door had remained closed. Yet here was this man: short, with brown hair parted and an easy smile.

“Where did _you_ come from?” hissed Ellen, too startled to bother to be polite.

“The other side of the curtain, of course,” said the man with a short, unpleasant laugh. His voice rang out, unafraid. “I am here to offer you a choice. It doesn’t always have to end in blood.”

Ellen snorted. “Why should I trust you?”

For answer, the man held out a white china saucer. In it lay a small red pill. “Believe me, this will make the next part much more pleasant,” he coaxed.

“The next part…?” said Ellen, backing against the curtain as he advanced, still holding out the saucer.

The man shrugged, and took hold of her chin with one lazy hand. “Either swallow it down yourself, or I will be forced – how unfortunate! – to make you,” he said, in a bored tone. “It’s all the same to me. Your choice.”

“N… no,” said Ellen, suddenly remembering the happiness of the women captured below. She grabbed the curtain with a hand behind her back, hit the saucer from below with her other hand, making the pill leap up and into the air, and, twisting out of the horrid man’s grasp, ran headlong for the stairs. At the sudden commotion a hundred women stared up at her, yet only mild surprise showed on their faces.

Her heels were a problem, making it hard to run. Behind her, the man was making easy work of it, and halfway down he grabbed her arm so hard she fell back on to the stairs. Two women she hadn’t seen before ran up to join him, dressed in neat white shorts and vests, and together they wrestled her down to keep her on the ground. One of the women had brought a glass of some red liquid, and they tipped it down her throat without compunction. It tasted… sweet, and bubbly, like champagne. The room began to swim around her.

“Your choice,” said the man, with another harsh laugh. Then, to the women: “Room six first, I think.”

The words wobbled in the air, and…

****

“You fainted, dear,” said a calm voice, as Ellen tried to sit up. She felt giddy, bursting with some happiness that defied description. “No, just stay lying down. We need to get you ready for tonight.”

“What is tonight?” The words felt heavy, as if sour consonants sat oddly against the sweet taste in her mouth.

“You’re seeing your boyfriend!”

Ellen tilted her head – she was lying on her front – and returned the second speaker’s smile. This woman had blonde hair tied up in a ponytail, a white vest and shorts, and was practically dancing in excitement.

“Oh…” said Ellen. That must be why she was feeling happy. “Solas is here, then?”

The first woman put a hand on her thigh. “Yes, yes, he’s here. Now lie still while we… ah, there we go.”

They were speaking in Spanish, realised Ellen with a glow of pleasure. She’d always wanted to travel. This was a nice place: warm, and safe, with birds singing in the forest outside. It was amazing to be somewhere where they’d look after you this well. She let the women carry on – washing, and shaving, and waxing – as they wished.

“You need something to wear, my dear,” said the first speaker again. “We’ve sent your dress to be washed.”

“Oh…” said Ellen again. She sat up and looked down at herself, then giggled. “Yes… I should wear something.”

“Wear these,” said the second woman, putting something on the bed. “This pink will suit you beautifully.”

“Ooh, that’s perfect,” cooed the first woman, adding to Ellen: “We don’t have long, now put them on.”

She fed Ellen’s arms into the straps of the bra, and fastened it behind her. Ellen glanced down and realised, with a shock muffled by – what _was_ that sweet taste in her mouth? – that they had shaved and waxed _all_ of her hair below the neck. Only the hair on her head remained, and that was soft, scented sweetly of rose. She couldn’t remember it being washed – they were really very good to her here. “Thank you,” she said, smiling shyly.

The other woman had knelt by her feet, and picked up one foot, with its newly pink-painted toenails, and then the other. Ellen reached down to help, pulling the knickers up over her thighs. Made of a lacy rose-pink fabric, very low-cut, with thin straps criss-crossing at the front and back where there would usually be…

Ellen swallowed, hard, and tried to imagine a world where her head didn’t feel so damned fuzzy.

“Marvellous,” said the second woman, standing up. She offered a hand, and guided Ellen to a mirror, for her to step into the pair of pink heeled, open-toed sandals waiting, and have them buckled on to her feet.

Ellen stared at herself: from gently waving brown hair over heaving chest and bronzed legs down to the painted toenails. The whole effect was undeniably feminine – and if that was what it took to keep Solas with her, then…

_But haven’t I broken up with him… and… and… wait… why am I wearing this?_

“Have a drink before you go,” said the first woman, and passed her a glass of rose-red liquid. She took it automatically. It smelled divine. Ellen smiled as she sipped. They really were _very_ nice, here.

****

It was a party, with the lights turned low, and strobe lights flashing. She was dancing with some of the other girls, her pink robe illuminated white and purple by turns, pushed back from her shoulders. The host had been pointed out to her – sitting in a chair on a dais at the far end of the room, he was an older, distinguished-looking man in a open-necked white shirt and smart grey trousers. Ellen could only see his back from here. He seemed to be paying more attention to the bank of monitors in front of him than the partygoers. It seemed a shame.

Occasionally he beckoned across a tall man with a long dark moustache whose name Ellen couldn’t remember. Had she been at one of these parties before, and met him there? After each beckoning, the man sought out one of the dancing girls – or two, or three – and took them through a door near the dais. And each time – hard to think with music so loud! – she thought the number of men waiting round the edges of the room got lower too.

Ellen kept on dancing, turning and twisting to the seductive beat of the music. The tallest of the girls she’d been dancing with – Sonya, Tonya, Anya, something like that – had been called away. It was easier to see the far wall now. She scanned it again, pleased with herself. So many good-looking men: dark-haired, fair-haired… and _oh._

That man had no hair at all. Yet he was handsome in his own way.

She felt a tap on her shoulder. It was the moustachioed man. “Miss Lavellan, would you care to come with me?”

“Of course,” said Ellen, smiling in the excitement of being singled out. In the corner of her vision she could see the bald man moving along the wall, following them as they walked slowly up the hall, negotiating the dancers. He walked faster than them, having fewer people to get around, and had reached the dais before them. Before they could ascend the steps he stood in front of them, bowing to them both, his face politely expressionless.

“Lord Livius,” he said in a lilting, carrying voice. _Welsh,_ thought Ellen, happily. “I believe this one is mine.”

“You are mistaken, Evan,” said the gentleman holding her arm. “I believe that Samson was before you.”

The Welshman frowned, but behind him their host suddenly swivelled his chair around, chuckling as if at a private joke. His face was horribly disfigured with a blood-red birthmark, and Ellen felt a twinge of sympathy… another of revulsion… and then an odd feeling of furious rage, as if something within her was caged...

“I am sure you are right, Livius,” said their host. His deep voice seemed familiar, somehow. “But think of the pleasure that Evan will have in taking _his brother’s_ girlfriend. You know they have never been on terms.”

“Indeed,” said Evan, with the slightest curl of his lips. Livius bowed, and let him guide Ellen to the waiting door.

  



	28. Warm front

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay in posting this - work has been very busy lately. Things are also about to get pretty busy for Ellen...

His hand was warm on her upper arm, reminding her of something, someone... bad? Ellen pushed the thought away. Whatever it was, she wouldn’t let it spoil this delightful evening. She sneaked a peek up at her companion’s face as they passed through the door and entered the darkened lift, hoping he was enjoying the party as much as she was. It was hard to tell: his face was very calm and peaceful.

Yet as soon as the lift doors whirred shut, the man pushed her against the wall, his body pressed against hers, his lips ghosting over her ear. “Smile and pretend I’m eager to get you into bed,” he whispered, his hands holding her wrists against the wall each side of her head while his body’s weight kept the rest of her in place.

Ellen sighed happily, and did as she was told, even arching her neck to the side to let him kiss her more easily.

Instead of kissing her, however, and somewhat disappointingly, he murmured in her ear again: “Two choices, Ellen. Less than half a minute to decide. First choice: we escape now. We risk more lives, including those of our companions. Or…” she heard him swallow, “we play at Corey’s game and distract him.”

It was hard to imagine why she’d want to escape. “I’m happy here with you,” she replied, surprised.

“Despite what you said earlier?”

His tone was urgent, but _earlier_ was too vague a concept. He smelled nice, despite the strange way he talked. What had they called him… Evan? She simply nodded, and as she did, the lift doors behind him opened, illuminating the left side of his face in a soft yellowish light. The freckles across his nose were cute, even with him frowning like a... like a… frowny thing.

“Enter,” came a woman’s voice from outside of the lift, and the man’s frown vanished as if it had been rubbed away with a cloth. He let go of her wrists and twined the fingers of one hand into her own, encouraging her to walk with him. She curled her other forearm around the rest of that arm, clinging as they walked.

The amber light came from dimmed thingies – fixtures – in the roof. It gleamed off the head of the woman who was handing something small to Evan. Her head was shaved, like his. Evan fitted the thing – earpiece? – into his ear with one hand, the right hand since she was still wrapped around his left arm.

The woman stepped round to her side, and, without asking, fitted a matching earpiece into Ellen’s left ear. A man’s deep chuckle came out of it, and Ellen looked around, startled. “Do what he says,” said the woman, and led them down the corridor to a door. The room inside was bright like a hotel bedroom, with a writing desk and chair, a clean white bed in the centre, and floor to ceiling glass windows lining one wall, black and reflective, showing nothing of the night outside. The woman closed the door from the outside, leaving her with Evan.

 _Sit down_ , said the man’s voice from her earpiece. Ellen was glad to – the sudden brightness made her dizzy.

The bed had no sheets or duvet so she sat on the edge of the mattress, watching as Evan dimmed the lights, removed his shoes and socks, then began to unbutton his shirt, slowly and with care. He was standing at the foot of the bed, close to the wall of windows. He had a nice body – defined, and slim, tall with broad shoulders – and she… _Tell him to hurry up._

“There’s no need to take so much time about it,” said Ellen, smiling up at the man.

He looked sharply across at her, his eyes flickering to the earpiece in her ear, but made no comment. Instead, he completed the task – mmm, he was gorgeous – and stripped his shirt off, revealing a clean white vest. There was a mark on his shoulder, some kind of scar half-hidden by the vest, which almost made him more attractive. The more Ellen stared at it, the more it began to worry her. Had the man been in a fight?

His hands went to the zip of his trousers, and she forgot about the scar, enthralled by the prospect as he slid his trousers down. He didn’t remove his vest or pale blue Y-fronts, but strode across. _Put up your hands._

Ellen raised her arms above her head, allowing Evan to remove the pink dress she was wearing. _Good girl._

He tossed it further up the bed, and hooked fingers into her knickers, never letting his gaze drop from her eyes. Slowly he began to move the fabric down her legs, towards the high-heeled sandals he hadn’t offered to remove. She giggled: the friction of the lace against her thighs was ticklish.

 _Lean back and let him pick you up,_ commanded the voice in her ear.

She had a thought to resist – his shoulder was sore, what if she were too heavy? – but before she could, Evan had stepped into the gap between her thighs, leaving her knickers round her ankles. He lifted her up so her legs were clasped around his waist, her arms wrapped tightly around his shoulders, and carried her to the window.

The glass was cold against her back, but he was warm. He was pressing kisses into her neck again, and rubbing himself against her in a way that made her wet. _Tell him how he makes you feel,_ came the voice.

But just as she opened her mouth to do so – _that’s good, so good, I love that, thank you –_ there was a loud crash several feet to her right, and glass shattering and spraying out across the room. Evan swore, and dropped her immediately back on to her feet, running across the room to drag the room’s heavy desk in front of the door to prevent it opening. Without him blocking her view she saw a feathered iron arrow piercing her dress at centre of the bed, and from the arrow’s tail a long thin rope, straining out through the broken window.

Suddenly in her ear, someone was swearing in Spanish – then _that_ was cut off as abruptly as the interruption.

“Get dressed,” commanded Evan over his shoulder. Still breathing fast, Ellen bent down to pull her knickers up, and found that Evan was holding out his own shirt to her. As she took it, he pulled his trousers back up, just before a man kicked in the remains of the shattered window. He was wearing a faded grey t-shirt and combat trousers, and looked like an ancient rebel leader, all muscles and long white ponytail.

The intruder spat out words in Spanish, cursing the name Fen’Harel. “You realise she is drugged?” he ended.

Evan’s eyes went wide. “No!” he cried, cradling Ellen’s face in his hands. His face had drained of colour.

The man glared at him. “They all are,” he said in broken English. “How you think they agree, Fen’Harel? How?”

It was cold now, from the open window. Ellen realised she was still holding the shirt, and began to put it on. The men were ignoring her, the old one fierce as a jaguar, and the man she’d been calling Evan stiff and pale.

“I thought your name was Evan,” she said, half to herself, and blinked at the look of despair he gave her.

“Who is she anyway?” asked the white-haired man, yanking the arrow out of the mattress, and knotting the rope tightly around a leg of the bed. “She come with us? Give her this if so. Antidote for their poison.”

He held out a small blue hipflask, and Evan… Fen’Harel… whoever… took it. The pounding on the door had turned to threats – _open up or we’ll shoot!_ And… _Open the door,_ said the voice in her ear, a cunning whisper.

She wanted to obey, but _he_ was in her way, forcing a draught of liquid down her throat. “Ugh,” she spat.

“It’s all right, Ellen,” he said, as she winced at the bitter taste. He thrust the flask into his trouser pocket and put his arms around her waist. “Stay calm. We’ll make it right. Now… can you hold on to my back?”

The other man had disappeared through the window, the rope taut as if he were hanging from it, and with the bitter taste in her mouth she suddenly felt fearful… and the man in front of her familiar. “Solas?” she quavered.

Behind them the desk shifted, and the door began to open. Through the narrow opening… a gun? Some instinct taking over, she pulled them both down to the floor. A shot rang out over their heads, burying itself in the wall.

“We have to get out of here,” said Solas. Everything was coming back to her... had been she drugged? “Quick!”

This time she didn’t hesitate, but clung to his back as he abseiled out of the room, his hands sure and steady on the rope. They landed in the rainforest jungle, its night time sounds and smells terrifying in their strangeness.  

Solas set her down, shaking and shivering, beside the old man waiting for them. Above, more shots rang out.

She held his arm tightly as they began to run through the dense undergrowth, plants brushing against her legs, her sandalled feet sinking into the earthy ground. “It’s ok, Ellen,” he consoled her. “We’re out of there.”

The old man grabbed her arm, and stared into her face, then, coldly furious, at Solas. “You called her… Ellen?”

“Yes,” said Solas, very grim. He sighed. “Ellen Lavellan. Did Cole find you, Abuelo? I asked him to explain.”

The question was ignored as the old man snarled: “You know who she is? Know she is my granddaughter?”

Solas’ eyes narrowed. Slowly… very slowly… he nodded. His face was a white mask in the dark. Ellen’s world was spinning as she looked from one to the other. “Abuelo… Abelas? Robert Corey said you _served_ my grandfather?”

“That fool knows nothing,” spat the white-haired man. “Easy to fool. He is not even a person! Why you here?”

“He kidnapped me,” said Ellen, her voice trembling. Then, as the man looked ready to murder Solas, added hastily. “I mean Robert. Robert Corey and his men… they kidnapped me. From England. On a plane.”

“And you ok? He hurt you?”

Ellen shook her head, the thought of Robert’s death in the dark a sudden weight on her conscience. “He might have done,” she said, “but Solas helped me. They think he is his brother. Are you really my grandfather?”

“My name is Arturo Bella Ruiz,” said the old man grandly, holding a branch up so that they could keep walking. “I built this place. The Coreys stole it from me. I try to get it back. My wife… she was in England, yes?”

“She… we thought you were dead,” said Ellen, bewildered. “How can I be sure that you are who you say?”

“He is,” said Solas curtly, before the man could speak. Behind them, someone was crashing through the jungle, and they broke into a run. “At least, you can be sure that he believes it. Abuelo, where is Cole?”

“Just up ahead,” said Arturo Bella Ruiz – _Abuelo? –_ and Solas looked relieved. “He waits for you. Your friends took the plane and landed in the _tala_. Fen’Harel…”

“Yes?” asked Solas sharply.

Arturo’s voice softened, his words coming out in quick bursts as they ran. “Cole said… you stay. But this no place for… you now. The people do not… forgive you… that you left. Take care my granddaughter. I tell them that.”

Ellen’s heart thumped painfully as Solas shook his head. “No, Abuelo. Your… _our_ people cannot win, not without my knowledge. Have you _seen_ what you are up against? If I go, then this land is gone.”

Her feet were aching, but the lights of the plane were near – and there it was, fifty feet ahead in the clearing, small against the trees. Cole ran to meet them. He grabbed Ellen’s other hand, and pulled her along. Solas let go.

“I will cut off their water! Then they have to go!” shouted her grandfather. He and Solas had stopped, and were screaming at each other over the engine noise. Cole dragged Ellen through the door just behind the cockpit.

Loghain and Varric were in front. “Where’s Hawke?” asked Varric urgently. “Did she find you?”

“No...” said Ellen, her eyes filling with tears as she stared at Solas and this man who was her grandfather. Solas… who was not in the plane, might not be coming to the plane. Her _dead_ grandfather. “I never saw her.”

“Shit,” said Varric. He ran a dirty hand through his hair. “I should never have agreed to let her look for Justinia.”

“She’s coming,” said Cole, looking out of the open door on the other side. Then he gasped. “No! No… no…”

Ellen followed the direction of his shaking hand. Two women – Hawke and Justinia – were running through the jungle, coming from another part of the complex. Behind them… the hugest army of monstrous spiders Ellen had ever seen. Justinia tripped and fell, and her body disappeared under claws and fangs. Hawke kept running.

“Solas!” screamed Ellen through the other door. He span around. At the sight of the spiders his face went white, and so did her grandfather’s beside him – the paleness of abject terror. Both raced towards the plane.

  



	29. Turbulence

Whether it was the drug still acting in her system, or adrenalin, or something else, seconds had never passed so painfully as they did now for Ellen. As if the world had been slowed to a single moonlit frame per second, each side of the plane, while she hammered the fast forward button.

The moment that Marian Hawke looked back over her shoulder and saw Justinia on the ground.

The gunshot – the _first_ shot – fired from behind Solas, the thud as it hit the trunk of a tree.

Hawke running back to her friend – lover? – and her over-the-shoulder cry: “Go on without me!”

The second shot, catching her grandfather – Abelas, Abuelo Arturo – in the calf, the red blood blooming.

Varric being wrestled back by Loghain – _don’t be a fool, man, they’ll kill you –_ and swearing.

The ever-present chittering of spiders, the dark waves washing at Hawke’s boots.

Solas hoisting Abelas on to the plane, slamming the door, hands already tearing off his vest to use as tourniquet.

Cole with his hand upon the _other_ door: mouth fallen open as the door still was, his eyes a plea for Hawke.

The murderous rage on Samson’s face, the narrowing of his eyes at the sight of the plane, his hand lifting…

“Loghain, start the engine!” cried Ellen.

She pushed Cole out of the way and grabbed the handle, the handle of the door. The blackened ground was moving below her, the long straight strip of tarmac: Corey’s runway. She heaved the door closed. “Hold on!”

More shots fired. By some mercy they missed the plane. No hits to engine, to wings, to windows, doors…

…no time to take a final look at Hawke.

 

Ellen flung herself backwards into the nearest seat and secured the seat belt around her waist, her head thrust back into the seat’s cold leather. _Jerk, acceleration, velocity, distance. Planes roll to turn._

Solas had lifted her grandfather into a seat beside her. “Can you get his belt?” he asked, shouting over the engine noise. He still knelt on the ground, his hands twisting the makeshift tourniquet, his body sliding towards the old man’s legs. As Ellen fiddled with the belt, the plane rolled to the side; Cole reached out from the seat on the other side of Abelas, across the narrow aisle, and steadied Solas’ shoulders.

In the front, Varric had his head in his hands. Her view of Loghain was blocked; she hoped he had his eyes open.

As soon as the plane stopped climbing, Solas got to his feet. Ellen thought he was going to make for the seat on the far side of Cole, but instead he disappeared down the aisle to the back section of the plane, searching in an overhead locker. Within a minute he was back with a first-aid kit and a bottle of some expensive fizzy water. She watched in silent shock as he counted out painkillers in his hand, persuaded Abuelo Arturo to swallow them with the water, extracted the bullet with a pair of tweezers from the kit, sterilized and bandaged the wound.

The old man’s hands were tight on his knees. “Where are we going?” he asked querulously.

When no-one responded, Ellen repeated the question more loudly, leaning forward in case it helped the pilot hear her. With bare legs and only Solas’ shirt over the underwear they’d given her, she was shivering with cold.

“We don’t have enough fuel to make it across the Atlantic,” said Loghain. “Solas, what did Cassandra say?”

Solas had disappeared again, but came back shortly with a pile of warm blankets, passing them out. Ellen snuggled into hers, and tried to flash him a grateful smile, but he was studiously avoiding looking at her. Before she could thank him, Loghain repeated the question, to which he responded with a string of numbers. _GPS coordinates?_ Lulled by the plane, dark, noise, and sudden warmth, she closed her eyes. 

 

The voice was familiar. Calling her name, a female voice. “Ellen, we need you awake now,” it said.

A gentle hand on her shoulder. She opened her eyes, startled to find that it was light, to see a woman’s face, skin a shade darker than her own, dark brown hair tied back, eyes filled with concerned kindness.

It took her several moments to place the woman as Josephine Montilyet, the police force’s legal advisor. Out of her pristine suits and in a yellow floral maxi-dress, she looked like a different person entirely. Ellen blinked, and hugged the navy blanket more tightly around herself. At least those were presumably Josephine’s own clothes. 

“She’s awake,” called Josephine to someone over her shoulder. Loghain appeared, still smart in his uniform.

Ellen looked around. The plane was empty apart from her; somehow she must have even slept through landing on a beach. Warm wind blew over the light brown sand; above, the sky was an early morning blue.

“Where am I?” she asked, then, more urgently: “Where’s Solas? Where are the others?”

“They are all at my parents’ house nearby,” said Josephine, adding, almost apologetically: “I’m afraid they take the view that it’s too cold in England in the winter. They’re not here at the moment – they returned when the rainy season began here – so I have the pleasure of hosting you. Welcome to the Caribbean, Miss Lavellan.”

“I’m feeling more like Ellen at the moment,” said Ellen. She slid a hand under the blanket, and undid her seatbelt, then folded the blanket down to use as a substitute skirt. “You don’t have to stand on ceremony.”

Loghain let out a grim chuckle. “She always does. Can you walk? I waited here in case you needed assistance.”

Her legs were shaking, but she would be damned if she’d let herself be carried to the house. “I can walk.”

 

Josephine had handled the whole thing with exquisite tact, Ellen realised, staring at the picture she now presented in the mirror. The woman had even left out a _choice_ of clothes – hers and her sister Yvette’s – so that Ellen could have the privilege of deciding for herself what she would wear after the bath. The clothes looked and felt expensive, even the t-shirt bra and matching white knickers. Ellen had chosen the most unobtrusive and boring clothes she could: a pair of dark grey trousers and a green t-shirt with _Save the Whales_ emblazoned on the front in large white letters. Breton striped ankle socks and a pair of Yvette’s soft grey suede and leather trainers, which somehow miraculously fitted her – completed the outfit.

Ellen felt human again.

She could hear the voices filtering up to the bathroom from the terrace outside: Loghain and Josephine, and occasionally Varric or Cole or… her _grandfather_ , if she could really believe he was. And all of a sudden she missed Ana, with a longing so visceral it was like a punch to the stomach. _Family. It’s what she needs._

Instead of doubling over, she brushed her hair instead, digging the bristles into her head. _I’m safe._

When she made it downstairs a few minutes later, she found Solas alone. He was sitting in a high-backed chair, staring out through the window towards the cliffs above the beach they’d landed on, but turned as she entered.

“Ellen…” he began, before trailing off, and starting again, more formally: “Ellen, how are you?”  

“Still processing,” she said. “The bath and change of clothes helped. I want to call Ana.”

“I called Cassandra when we arrived. She will have told Evie, and your friends, that you are safe.”

“Thank you,” said Ellen. He was still in his twin’s uniform trousers, but now wore a pale yellow short-sleeved shirt that looked as if it had been ironed to within a inch of its life. He looked exhausted. “That’s a nice shirt.”

“I believe it belongs to Laurent,” said Solas, “…who is either Josephine’s brother or her father.”

It was as if the events of the last forty-eight hours had never happened, except for a certain constraint in the way he glanced at her, then frowned, and looked away again. After a few more minutes of polite and awkward orientation – Josephine could show her where to set up a Skype call to England, her flight there was booked for tomorrow, there was food laid out in the dining room – Ellen excused herself, and left him to his introspection.

As she stepped out of the lounge on to the terrace, she ventured a glance back at him. His head was half turned away. A ray of bright Caribbean sunlight illuminated the tear that was trickling down his cheek.

 

Ellen blew a final kiss to Ana, clicked the red stop-call icon, and leaned back in the office chair, briefly closing her eyes for balance. A long minute later, there was a gentle knock on the door. Josephine stood, carrying a tray: two perfect china tea cups on saucers, two exquisite coffee mugs, teapot, sugar bowl, coffee, milk and cream.

“Coffee, or Earl Grey tea?” she asked, and when Ellen chose the tea, poured a mug of coffee for herself.

“What time do we set off for the airport tomorrow?” asked Ellen absently, still thinking of Ana. They’d told Ana that she was at a conference – Ellen had stayed overnight a couple of times before, to Edinburgh or Cambridge.

“I can drive you,” said Josephine, raising the coffee to her lips. She sipped, and smiled.

“Who else is coming on the flight?” Ellen wasn’t sure she could make polite small talk with Loghain in departure lounges and in flight for however many hours it would take, far less with a grieving Varric.

“Oh… only you,” said Josephine, surprised. “But we will make sure to buy plenty of magazines to occupy you.”

Ellen turned to her, shaking her head. “Just me? But… where are the others going?”

The woman’s eyes were soft and sad. “Perhaps you should know. A few weeks ago, your manager Celene Valmont became suspicious of some irregularities in the studio’s accounting, funds disappearing to accounts held in South America. She appointed a private investigator, a lady who goes by the name of Morrigan. Last night, presumably while all of you were there, Morrigan somehow seems to have killed Robert Corey.”

“Killed… Robert?” Ellen put her free hand up to her mouth and bit down on her fingers, hard.

“According to our information, early this morning, they found her inspecting his body, and brought her to be cross-examined by the elder Mr Corey, his father. Yet on hearing the news of his son’s death, and before they could take her prisoner, the elder Mr Corey suffered a massive heart attack, and died.”

“He died?! Are you sure?”

“Yes. We also know that in the chaos, Morrigan escaped, and contacted Celene to conclude their contract. She seems a very resourceful woman. As is your colleague Madame de Fer, who happened to be in a position to alert us to the multiple developments. Once Ms Valmont knew of our interest in the situation, she kindly updated us.”

That sounded like code for _Cassandra Pentaghast and Leliana Nightingale gave her no alternative._ Ellen removed the finger from her mouth, and took a shaky breath. “What happens to the complex now?”

Josephine paused with her coffee halfway to her mouth, little finger raised delicately. In the nicest possible way, she seemed to be weighing Ellen up. “I could be wrong, but it seems to me that that rather depends on you.”

“On me?”

Now Ellen was sure this was evaluation. Josephine smiled sweetly. “How would you like to see Hawke again?”

  



	30. Sunshine and showers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And finally... the end. Hope you enjoyed this extended one-shot!

Ellen drained her second cup of tea, her mind almost made up. “What do the others know of this?”

“Nothing, as of yet,” said Josephine, taking the empty cup from Ellen and placing it on the tray. “Leliana told me while I was arranging for them to set up the call for you with Ana. So… is it of interest to you?”

Up here in Josephine’s parents’ study, with the door closed, she could almost imagine herself back in Britain: the delicate architectural engravings and cornflower watercolours apt reminders of the English summer left behind. Yet… _I’d always wanted to travel._ A chance like this would surely never come around again, and she mustn’t let her complex feelings for Solas… or Robert… stand in her way. Slowly, unclenching her fists, she nodded.

Josephine Montilyet returned her gesture with a small smile of her own. “Then let’s talk with the others.”

Down on the terrace they found Ellen’s grandfather dozing in a cushioned chair, and Varric on the long wooden bench, nursing an opened can of Stella in his hands. He sighed as Ellen and Josephine sat down beside him, and stared down at the can with bleary eyes. “Did I ever tell you about the time Hawke was on a Sicilian hit list?”

“No,” said Josephine, as gently as she could, “but I’m sure that she would enjoy telling Ellen the story herself.”

Varric started in his chair, spilling the beer over the blue slate flagstones, where it fizzed. “Shit. She’s alive?!” Josephine nodded, and he knocked the remains of the Stella back. “I should have known,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief. “I should have put my money on Hawke walking away from the complex as it exploded.”

The old man in the corner opened sharp eyes, frowning. “What this about explosion?”

“Nothing exploded,” said Ellen, hastening to reassure him. “We were just explaining to Varric that his friend Hawke survived those spiders that we saw. And… both of the Coreys are dead.”

“ _Madre de Dios,_ ” swore her grandfather, then added, more thoughtfully, “ _Que pasó?_ ”

“We believe the son was killed, and his father died of the shock,” said Josephine, keeping it simple. She looked around, and frowned slightly. “Varric, do you know where my other guests have gone?”

“Loghain took the car as you suggested, to get more fuel for the plane. I haven’t seen Cole or Solas in a while.”

“Perhaps they are still in the house,” said Josephine, and stood up again, stepping delicately over the puddle of beer on the ground. Varric leapt to his feet behind her, muttering something about a cloth.

Ellen met her grandfather’s eyes, and slipped into Spanish. “How is the wound… um… what should I call you?”

“My leg will heal,” said the old man with a shrug. “Fen’Harel is a practical man. He did what he could. As for my name, I shed it the day your grandmother left. She wrote to me only once, to say your mother died, and that she would stay in England to take care of you. That was the first I knew of you. Is she… my Deshanna… still alive?”

“She died seven years ago,” said Ellen. “Peacefully, in her sleep. I was eighteen. She never talked much of you.”

He blew out a long-held breath. “Then _you_ can call me Abelas like the others. Leave my true name in her grave.”

Ellen gave him a moment, then asked a question Aba Shanna had never answered: “Why… why did she leave?”

Abelas coughed, wincing, and made a gesture for her to pour a glass of water for him. As she did, he explained: “The jungle was too quiet for her, once your mother had married. She wanted us to sell the land, buy a house in the city. I refused to leave. We argued. She left. For years I lived alone – working, building, expanding what that man called the _complex_ – until one day Fen’Harel knocked at my door. He called me _abuelo,_ grandfather – a term of respect. His aims were noble. I explained my desire to be left alone in peace, and he agreed.”

“But you were not left in peace,” said Ellen, shaking her head as she passed him the water. “The Coreys came.”

“At first it was only the son. I thought he was with Fen’Harel’s people, and so did not take notice of him when I saw him near the complex, taking photographs. They called me Abelas by then, a corruption of _abuelo_. The next time he returned… they had guns. They threw me out. I have been trying to reclaim my land since then. At first I petitioned through the law, but with corruption and Fen’Harel’s rebels in the area… they would not back me.”

Ellen nodded slowly. “Why did you never contact my grandmother?”

“Too proud,” said Abelas. He took a sip, lowering his eyes for a moment in pained remembrance. “To stay for the land, and then to lose it anyway? I _had_ to reclaim it. I joined Fen’Harel’s group, thinking he would help me take my case to the law. But no-one would stand up to El Antiguo. Eventually we argued, and Fen’Harel left. He thought that we were wasting time on politics. Perhaps he was right. Each time we fight our numbers lessen.”

“What happens now that the Coreys are dead?” asked Ellen.

Abelas looked up, behind Ellen, and she turned to see what he looked at: Loghain striding up the path. Before she could work out what to tell him, Josephine came round the corner to intercept him, Varric close behind her.

“That will depend upon these friends of yours and Fen’Harel’s,” said Abelas, frowning across at the tight-knit group. “If they will fly me back to my land, I will resume my fight to clear the place of Corey’s people.”

“I think your fight will be a short one,” said Ellen, remembering what Josephine had said. “They already plan to clear out the complex and to make it over to you. And… I should like to visit you there, once that is done.”

Abelas pinched his nose. He looked… aggrieved. “But… this is my fight! They are not even Venezuelan!”

“Cole is,” said Ellen, annoyed by her grandfather’s obstinacy in refusing help where offered. Her grandmother had been equally stubborn. No wonder they had struggled to reach compromise. “And… Solas…” it hurt to say the name, “…who you call Fen’Harel – he is half-Venezuelan. On his mother’s side, like me.”

“Venezuelans such as _him_ ,” said Abelas, resuming his dignity, “I can accept. It was not men like him that poisoned my land with mines or killed our trees with their logging. Fen’Harel had nothing to do with that.”

“Then let him help you,” pleaded Ellen. It was against her own interests in the matter, but she had to convince him. She shook sudden tears from her eyes. “And when he has done, let me come and bring my daughter.”

Her grandfather had been about to argue further, but now he stopped, and looked at her, his expression frozen, then suddenly wistful. “You have a daughter? In England? How old… what is her name?”

“Anastacia Deshanna Lavellan. She’s four. I call her Ana. I was speaking to her just now, over the internet. She thinks,” said Ellen, with a rueful smile for her daughter’s innocence, “that I am at a conference.”

Abelas raised an eyebrow. “And her father?”

“She has no father,” said Ellen firmly, her smile fading. Then, observing his expression hardening again, she twisted the knife. “But… she could meet her great-grandfather. If he let his friends help him reclaim his land.”

Josephine had brought the others across while she was talking. “Will you let us help, _señor_?” she asked.

Ellen sat back and waited. Slowly, painfully slowly, she could see her ancestor yield his pride, and nod. Yet as soon as he had done so, he frowned again, and held up a finger. “I need speak Fen’Harel first. If he trust, I trust.”

Strange that the old man should have so much trust in a liar. “We will find him,” said Josephine firmly. She turned to her… colleague. “He and Cole are not in the house,” she explained. “Perhaps they are by the plane.”

Loghain hefted one of the heavy canisters he’d rested on the ground. “I’ll go and look.”

Suddenly restless for no reason that she could coherently explain, Ellen pushed herself up from the bench. “I’ll go as well,” she said, leaving Abelas with Varric and Josephine as she ran to catch up with the pilot.

Slates turned to sand, and she was glad of sister Yvette’s expensive trainers. But no-one was near the plane. “I’ll load the fuel and check the plane over,” said Loghain. “Probably best if you wait for me, and then we’ll search along the beach. I’d have seen them if they’d gone along the road.”

Ellen agreed, and stood in the lee of the plane, her head leaning back against the cockpit door, savouring the salt tang on the breeze. Clouds gathered and scudded across the sky, dark grey on blue. _Like Solas’ eyes._ The thought made her sad. She would go back to England, and he would stay in Venezuela, and with the battle over here, would find another cause to run, or ruin. Yet how could she have stayed in a relationship with him, knowing what she knew? Her eyes traced patterns in the sand. _I’m doing this for Ana._ Humidity built, inside and outside, until she felt a drop of moisture on her cheek, and another, and another, until it was a full-on tropical storm.

“I need to see if Josephine has some tools,” said Loghain, appearing suddenly beside her. “Want to wait inside?”

She let him open the door. Something fluttered to the ground: a folded piece of paper, wedged into the door, marked _SOLAS_. Curious, she picked it up and opened it – then thrust it in front of Loghain, her hand shaking.

_It’s easiest for everyone if I’m gone. Thank you for teaching me. Make Ellen happy. – Cole_

Loghain’s gaze immediately went to the sea, his sallow face turning white. He ran around the plane and to the shoreline, looking up and down the beach, calling Cole’s name. “Go that way!” he shouted, pointing Ellen in the direction away from the clouds, while he took the other. Slamming the door shut and thrusting the note in her pocket, she began to run across the sand, warm rain soaking Yvette’s t-shirt until it was slick against her body.

And then… as she rounded the headland, racing through the storm between the sea and the cliffs, she saw them: Cole and Solas, out in the water. Solas had Cole supported under his arms, was treading water with the other arm. Somehow he’d managed to hold them there, not making it to shore nor drifting out. Ellen turned and shouted, catching Loghain’s attention, and waved for him to come and help – and hoped that he could swim.

She was wading into the water before Loghain passed her, swimming in neat strong strokes. He took Cole from Solas and ordered him to get to the beach, while he himself carried Cole to the house. _He’ll be ok. Well done._

Ellen, still shaking, crouched down by Solas. “Did you see his note?” she asked, soon as she judged he could talk.

He glanced at it, shook his head. “N…no. I walked along the cliffs to clear my head, then s…saw him.” He pointed to a dark line leading down the cliffs – half path, half mudslide. “I came down there. I g…got there just in time.”

“Are you ok?” asked Ellen, tentatively, pushing wet hair out of her eyes. “It’s bucketing down. Can you walk?”

She helped him up gingerly, reluctant at first to touch him, then too aware of his proximity, and what she could remember of last night. They walked in silence, feet apart, damp shoes heavy and sinking into wet brown sand.

Then: “The Coreys are dead,” she blurted out, loudly through the rain. Solas stopped, startled. Breathlessly she repeated Josephine’s abbreviated explanation. He muttered something under his breath. “What did you say?”

He coughed, and said, more loudly: “I said… this changes everything.” They’d stopped on the sand, the red cliffs rising proudly behind him, and he visibly swallowed before he resumed speaking. “Ellen… I… if I were willing to come back to England with you… were willing to look after Ana… do you think you would…? Would you reconsider?”

There was no need to ask about _what_ she might reconsider. Her heart thumped painfully again. “You… you _want_ to stay with me? Despite what you said? Despite what _I_ said? Despite what we _did_?”

Solas chuckled, despite his obvious exhaustion. Hope fluttered in her chest. “Nobody is perfect, _corazon._ ”

She nodded, thinking of Ana’s father, and her ancestors. “If you returned… perhaps we could give it a try?”

They were soaked, but his arms reached out to circle her waist, her hands up to his cheeks, his lips salt-hard and yielding against her own soft ones. The weather was irrelevant. Nothing mattered except that she… was home.

  



End file.
